Crossing the Line
by Kakashis Forehead Protector
Summary: Major Lorne knew that, even on Atlantis, there were some lines you just didn't cross, some rules you didn't break...but rules were always meant to be broken, werent they? LorneOC
1. Chapter 1

Crossing the Line

Chapter One

It was a very pretty cake, he had to give it that much. Nicely frosted, with small smiley faces instead of flowers at the edges. Serviceable, cheerful, and, from the smell of it, delicious to boot. But it had thirty-six candles on it, and therein lay the problem.

Lorne forced a smile and hoped it didn't look too fake. He was sincerely thankful to his team for this; it was really nice of them to think of him, it really was. If he didn't want to be reminded of his age, it wasn't their fault he hadn't told them.

"Thanks, guys, this is. . .this is great." He glanced around the locker room. "Who made it?"

Lt. Cadman grinned at him. "We got Danny to do it, sir -- apparently he's quite the baker in his free time."

Lorne grinned as Cadman and Lt. Riley snickered at Danny's blush, but inside he couldn't stop thinking about the candles on the cake.

Thirty-six years of life, thirty-six years of learning how to fly, how to run, how to shoot an M-16. Thirty-six years of preparation to be on Atlantis and fighting the wraith.

It was fulfilling, of course. Nothing really compared to saving the lives of millions of people -- or freeing entire planets from subjugation, be it from a wraith or another human. And this wasn't even mentioning the sort of paradise it was for officers with even a bit of ambition: provided you actually survived them, missions in the Pegasus Galaxy were the kind that made majors colonels and colonels generals; you only needed to look at Col. Sheppard to figure that one out.

Yeah, being on Atlantis was both a great challenge and a great opportunity, and everyday he thanked his lucky stars that he had gotten the chance to be apart of it. But. . . For all the missions, the good friends, and the birthday cakes, there was something off, something missing. Something Marcus Lorne couldn't quite place.

"Well come on, major, make a wish and blow them out."

Lorne smiled and leaned over the cake. I wish, he thought, I wish for something new. . .for someone. . .and he blew on the candles and watched the smoke drift to the ceiling.

* * *

Elizabeth Weir knew there was something bothering Major Lorne. Though he hid it quite well for a man constantly surrounded by people, Elizabeth was an intuitive person. It also may have helped that both Lt. Cadman and Dr. Danny Bergher had approached her with their concerns within hours of each other.

Elizabeth knew Marcus to be a steady man, one who could be trusted to make level-headed decisions in the middle of a firefight. There was, after all, a reason Gen. O'Neill had suggested him specifically as second-in-command when Atlantis was first manned. And it was a tribute to the major's fighting ability and mental health that, at the start of his second year on Atlantis, he was neither dead nor requesting a post several billion light years closer to home.

However, the very nature of being on Atlantis was constricting, to say the least. It was nothing like a regular life -- or even a life at the SGC. There you could go to work and stress, then go home and unwind. It was all work in Atlantis. Not only was he cut off from his family and the life he had spent years making for himself on earth, whether or not Major Lorne was on duty he was constantly surrounded by his coworkers and the stressors -- and there were big ones in the Pegasus Galaxy -- from his workday. This environment left little, if any, time for a personal life; some people just coped better than others. Perhaps, thought Elizabeth, Major Lorne was one of the latter. There was nothing from either his personnel file or her personal acquaintance with him that would indicate this was the case, but you could never really be sure, could you?

Well, Major Lorne was well overdue for some time off, though he would probably refuse it if his team didn't get some; the least she could do was give him some time off from the stress of fighting -- and she had just the right assignment for the job.

* * *

"You have got to be kidding me." Lorne shoved the offending papers at Cadman as she walked into the gun room. "Newbie training?"

Cadman grinned. "Don't blame me, sir. Not my fault you didn't want to leave."

"But. . .newbie training. It's just. . .newbie training." Lorne shook his head. He knew what Dr. Weir was doing. He was angry, yes, disappointed, yes, but he knew what she was doing. He just wished she could have found a different way to do it -- preferably, one that did not involve babysitting.

* * *

"This is Dr. Rodney McKay, head scientist here in Atlantis and a member of Col. Sheppard's team. He may not look like much, boys and girls, but he's faced the wraith more times than most of us have been off world."

Rodney smiled, said something witty concerning the ratio of stun blasts to the state of Lorne's intelligence, and started nattering on about various wraith-fighting weapons which, oh, by the way, he was actually the brains behind. Marcus, of course, did the intelligent thing and ignored him, choosing instead to go over the dossiers of the first of his new junior officers.

Richard Twellum, captain, thirty-four. On his first off world mission at the SGC he had brokered a ceasefire between two continents of rebel Jaffa -- while they were actually firing missiles at each other.

Luc Abidal, also captain, thirty-one. Stationed until recently in Iran, he had taken out a cave full of terrorists armed only with to rounds of ammo and an M-16.

Anna-Patricia Schweinsteigger, second lieutenant, at twenty-one the youngest person on Atlantis by about three years. On her nineteenth birthday she had ranked just below Col. Sheppard at the dogfight over Antarctica.

This, then, was the first of several shipments of military personnel that were heading over on the Daedelus, along with an ungodly number of lab rats -- scientists, that is. As some small measure of repayment for training the first two batches, Marcus could have first pick of one of any of the first ten to arrive to join his team.

So far, the prospects did not look particularly prospectful. Cap. Twellum was a negotiator, and a good one at that -- but he would not make a good subordinate; he was the sort of man who worked better when no one was looking over his shoulder. Dr. Weir would probably give him his own team as soon as Marcus could train another group or two. Cap. Abidal, for all that he was gifted with the ability to kill others, was unfortunately devoid of the ability to be modest about it. Major Lorne liked the man, but he knew the bragging would get to him sooner or later. No, Cap. Abidal would be put on Cap. Lawrence's team as soon as she was promoted to major: her patience was legendary in Atlantis -- even Dr. Mckay couldn't seem to irritate her. Lastly there was Lt. Schweinsteigger. She seemed to be a promising officer with good fighting skills, great in firearms and decent at hand-to-hand, though she was a bit shorter than your average Atlantean. But then, with a name like Schweinsteigger, who wouldn't be good at defensive maneuvers? Yes, she seemed all right, but there was something off about her. Something not quite right. . .

Aha. There it was. Marcus leaned forward and watched intently as she studied an artifact one of the scientists had brought back to Atlantis.

"No, that was translated incorrectly. It says 'clear', not 'transparent'; it's a common mistake, and usually doesn't make much of a difference, but as you can see here it changes the meaning of the entire paragraph. Dan- Dr. Jackson showed me how to tell the difference: see the small horizontal bar where the-"

Marcus tuned the rest of it out. So that's what it was -- she was a nerd in wolf's clothing. And on a first name basis with Dr. Jackson, at that. Oh well, she couldn't be perfect. Too bad. She wasn't a bad looker, either; nothing particularly stunning, but nothing really unpleasant to look at. If he were ten years younger and a civilian. . .but he wasn't, and that was that.

* * *

"-that, but most people just call me Anna; everything else is a bit of a mouthful, really." Anna took a bit of cornbread and looked over Laura's shoulder at Major Lorne, who stood by the mess line holding a plate. He kept glancing at her and at an empty table nearby, clearly waffling on where to sit. Strange, she had seen him sitting with his team every day since she had been there. Maybe he didn't like her? She didn't think she had done anything to irritate him, but you never knew. Some people were just touchy.

She looked down at her nearly-full plate and stood. "Maybe I should go - I think I have something to do right-"

"Is this seat taken?" Major Lorne hunkered down across from her before she could answer.

Anna looked at Laura quickly; having her CO sitting there, after the way he had been acting lately. . .well, it was unsettling, to say the least.

"Actually, I was just leaving, sir, so I-"

"But you just started eating. Stay - I promise I won't bite." The major looked at her with a genuine welcome in his eyes.

Anna sat back down again and smiled nervously at Laura. Men, honestly. First he practically gave her the glare o' death from across the room, then he turned his puppy-dog look on her so she wouldn't leave. Sometimes Anna had no idea what to make of the major: he would smile at her one minute, join Cadman in teasing her about her nerd-like tendencies, and the next minute he would be. . .not angry, really, or displeased with her, but - stoic. Yes, that was it. Not irate, not disappointed, not anything; his lips would set in a firm line, his eyes would go dark, and there would be no more out of him for a day or two. Strange, she had never seen him act this way towards anyone else -- not Col. Sheppard, not the civilians, and certainly not his own team; just her. And speaking of teams, she was now the only one from the first three shipments to arrive who had not as yet been assigned to a team. She knew Major Lorne had the choice of picking one person for his team: it would have been impossible not to, what with everyone competing for the spot; but this was getting ridiculous. Of the first twenty military officers to have come to Atlantis, there were only two left not assigned to a team or to Atlantis, and the other was a trigger-happy marine. Lorne was going to have to choose one of the two, but he was taking his sweet time about it, and until he did Anna was stuck in an Atlantean limbo; as she had not been officially assigned to any area she could have no officially assigned duties at Atlantis, so she had nothing to do but go off world - except that she couldn't go off world with teams until she was officially assigned to a specific team or area. It was getting boring, annoying, and irritating as anything, and not for the first time she found herself wishing Major Lorne would tell her he didn't want her and be done with it.

And yet. . .she really wanted to be on his team. There was just something about him, how he always offered to help anyone, laughed so easily, the ways his eyes sparkled when he teased her. You could tell he was a kind person, you really could -- and she knew he would give his life, without even thinking about it, to save another's. True, that could be said of many people on Atlantis, but Major Lorne was different. Not necessarily better, just different.

And then there were the times he watched her, like he was right now when he thought she wasn't looking. It was a look she had gotten lots of times -- and she had eventually dated a good percentage of the lookers. But Major Lorne was her superior officer; he would never be stupid enough to be attracted to her.

Would he?

* * *

"So you're from Texas?" Cadman speared a piece of broccoli and twirled it in front of her eyes. "You don't sound like it."

Lt. Schweinsteigger laughed. She had a nice laugh though she used it so often it could get on your nerves. "You know, most people don't -- it's just the north and east ones who have that ridiculous accent. Actually they wouldn't believe I was from Texas when I enlisted; and they wouldn't believe I was eighteen, either, so they- what?"

Cadman's mouth opened and closed several times before she spoke; Marcus thought she looked a bit like a red-haired fish.

"You're enlisted?"

The lieutenant nonchalantly ate several pieces of watermelon before she answered. "Used to be."

"But you're not anymore."

Though her posture was relaxed, Marcus could see her shoulders were tense, her hand clenched around the fork. He had known she'd made the jump from enlisted to officer somehow, due in part to Gen. O'Neill, but the specifics of how and why had been classified. Clearly there was something behind it she was uncomfortable talking about; if only Cadman could see it and shut up already.

One of Schweinsteigger's shoulder's twitched slightly. She was either about to lie or evade the question.

"No, I'm not. Got lucky in a situation at the SGC once or twice."

Lie.

"Really?" Cadman wasn't buying it either.

Marcus almost felt sorry he had made her stay. If she wasn't stopped now, Cadman could go on for quite some time. It's not that she was insensitive -- far from it. It's just that she didn't know the lieutenant like-

Like what? Like he did? He had trained her for a week, not exactly a bonding sort of thing; and she and Cadman had probably gotten friendly, considering there weren't that many women on base who had as many things in common as they did - flying, explosives, things like that. To tell the truth, Cadman probably did know her better than he did.

But still, the girl was obviously nervous. Well, only one thing to be done in a situation like this.

"Hey Cadman, did Dr. Weir come see you earlier today? I think she had some questions about P3X-989 - remember the mice?"

"No, actually she-"

Lorne patted her on the back. "Well, maybe you should go see her."

"Right now, sir?" Lt. Cadman looked at the half-eaten food on her plate and frowned; the look she gave him suggested she would like to kill him or have him committed to an insane asylum - or maybe both.

"Yes, right now. I don't think this is her lunch hour, and, you know - never keep a diplomat waiting."

She huffed off; he'd be on the wrong side of her snark for several days, but. . .for the grateful look Lt. Schweinsteigger gave him, he didn't think he would mind too much.

Except now they were alone. Marcus cleared his throat and grabbed the pepper shaker.

"So. . .you're from Texas, then?"

She laughed.

* * *

It was easy talking to him after that. He was a good man, like she had thought, and he was sarcastic enough to rival Dr. Mckay, though much less understated. He was still her superior officer, of course, but that didn't mean they couldn't have a friendly chat once in a while.

Just as long as those chats didn't get too friendly - and as long as he figured out who he wanted for his team, and soon.

* * *

All right, so this was not exactly going to be a fair and unbiased process.

Like there had been a chance of that.

Marcus Scott Lorne was a practical individual; he knew himself, and he knew he was attracted, albeit shallowly, to the lieutenant.

The female lieutenant, that is.

Being such, if he were to adhere strictly to protocol he would have told Elizabeth he wanted Lt. Petit for his team as soon as he realized he had a crush, so to speak, on the other lieutenant.

But he hadn't.

And now he had to choose.

If he were honest with himself, he had to admit that both were about equally suited for the job. Petit's specialization was explosives, which could help them escape from sticky situations; Schweinsteigger's was flying, which often stopped sticky situations from happening. He had had special ops training, which would help in enemy territory; she had been trained as a linguist, which would help in friendly territory. He had some training at negotiating with terrorists; she had some training with a sniper rifle. He had years of experience; she had good brains and an opinion that consisted more of gut feeling and less of promotion-wanting.

Thus the quandary.

It should have been easy. It wasn't like he was in love or anything, he was just minorly attracted. He knew why, of course. He had been feeling down and bored, and she was new and interesting. The fact that there were no women on Atlantis he felt comfortable flirting with only added to it. It was just a minor crush - if thirty-six year olds had crushes - and it would soon pass. He should, of course, choose Lt. Petit. It was the only logical thing to do, really.

But would it really be so bad, just this once. . . .He had, after all, given up what life he had to be on Atlantis. . . .Didn't he deserve at least this? It was such a small thing. . . .No one ever needed to find out.

It's not like he was going to fall in love with her.

His conscience twinged.

It almost made him change his mind.

Almost.

Smiling, Marcus pulled out a pen and started filling out the paperwork.


	2. Chapter 2

Crossing the Line

Chapter Two

Team movie night was the day after he got Weir's official permission. Not that it was an official team movie night, but Cadman had taken to calling it that when their team had ended up watching a movie the same night at the same time five weeks in a row. It had become a bit of a tradition with them, broken only when one of them was in the infirmary - or on leave, which happened so rarely it wasn't even worth mentioning.

This week's selection was _Rear Window_, which Cadman and Lt. Riley had assured him was a classic; he had to admit he was slightly suspicious of a movie suggested to him by a tap-dancing explosives expert and a several-times black belt who had read all of Jane Austen's works, but it seemed he had little choice in the matter, as Danny had steadfastly refused to back him up.

He thought he would stop by her room a few hours early, tell her the news, and invite her to watch the movie with them. Quite simple, really

He wasn't sure exactly where her room was, so it took him half an hour of being misdirected by well-meaning souls to find it.

He was surprised when he did find it, though. It was in a newer section of the city that he hadn't really gone through yet, a small, secluded area. No other people in sight. From inside the room drifted the sound of something - a piece of music. Ave Maria? On the cello. Nicely done, too. Not, perhaps, professional standards, but pretty close to it. She must have spent hours practicing that.

Right. Team. Movie night.

He knocked. The cello screeched to a halt, and he winced. She probably hadn't been expecting company.

"Just a minute - Cadman?" Her voice sounded muffled, like there was cloth over her head. Changing, probably - or, judging by Cadman, perhaps merely dressing.

Kid sister, kid sister. . . . Right, she had asked who it was - or something like that.

"No, it's Lorne."

Silence.

Quick scraping and shuffling sounds. An opening and closing of what he was pretty sure were closet doors. Hurried scrambling. He snickered. Apparently Jason Riley wasn't the only person on Atlantis who was lax about cleanliness. Though most people hadn't brought over many personal effects - even the dirtiest of rooms could only be a bit cluttered at most.

He had been leaning a bit on the door without noticing, so he stumbled when they slid open, and for a few moments he was painfully aware of just how clumsy he must look.

She, on the other hand. . . . He had never seen her wearing civvies before; she looked. . . cute. Her hair was slung back in a messy bun; she wore some soccer jersey, boy's basketball shorts, and a pair of dusty socks. She looked - relaxed. He had never seen her so; she was always rigidly tense when he was near. Ah, the downfalls of being a superior officer: no matter how wonderful the people serving below you were, you could never really get to know them for what they were in real life. No matter where you were, no matter what the situation, there was always the matter of rank to consider. But tonight he had caught her alone, off guard. She had forgotten who she was and who he was, and he was glad of it.

He realized she had said something - oh yes, inviting him in. He looked down; he had slumped back against the door.

Her room was nice. Very nice. There were candles and incense placed around the room; it smelled like cranberry. He wondered how she had gotten permission to actually burn anything in the sleeping quarters. There were several cushions thrown on the bed, but her pillow was nowhere to be seen. There were several posters on the wall, of some Hitchkock movies and Monty Python. The shelves had several books on tape, some dictionaries, and a few 'learn-how-to-speak-' CDs: Turkish, Danish, and Punjabi, from what he could tell. Strange mix, that. The poor thing really was a nerd at heart. Dr. Jackson would have been proud. There wasn't much else - a chair and a desk with a laptop, notebook, and a mug of coffee. There were several open letters on her bed, too. Ah yes, the Daedelus had docked in today; he would have to go check if he had gotten any mail this time.

"Won't you sit down?" She giggled, and he realized he had been gawking.

He looked around. She was standing next to the bed, which left the chair for him. He sat. The Ancients, no matter what their shortcomings, had known how to build chairs. It was far more comfortable than it looked. He waited until she got comfortable on the bed before he began. Or until he got comfortable with his own thoughts; he was not sure which it was, himself. The things he wanted to say he meant, and he hoped they would be enough; he had chosen her for his team, yes- but would she choose to be on it?

"I didn't expect much from you when I trained you, you know. You don't look like much for a soldier." She was stoic; what could be passing through her mind? She was good, when she wanted, at not showing emotion. He had noticed it. But she was tense again; he wished she weren't. "But appearances, as I have learned, have been deceiving."

One of her fingers twitched, and he looked down at his own hands. He had not even noticed he was rubbing them together. Strange how the mind worked sometimes, wasn't it?

"You're a good airman, lieutenant. Good enough to be on Atlantis - good enough to be on a team." He paused; her fingers had twitched again, and again he wondered what she was thinking.

* * *

Oh no. He had chosen Petit, and he was going to put her with Abidal. She knew he was going to put her with Abidal. It's not that she didn't like Abidal's CO, Major- what was her name? But. . . not Abidal! Anna knew Lorne had no problems with the man, but she did. Ever since they had boarded the Daedelus he had made it his mission to prove that he was better than her in every way possible. Not just in age, rank, and combat experience, but in knowledge of Ancient devices, in control of the ATA gene, in the ability to fly a jumper, in anything and everything he could possibly think of. He was a pompous, self-absorbed idiot, and she had been glad to be free of him. But then one of his team members had left, and the spot had been opened for either her or Petit. And now-

"Yesterday Dr. Weir gave me permission to add another person to my team - and I want it to be you."

Oh.

Well, that changed things a bit, now didn't it?

"Well, I-"

He looked up for an instant; his gaze was sharp. She had never noticed that before. His hands rubbed together, almost as if he were nervous. Why should he be nervous?

"You don't have to answer right now- or even today, really. We, we usually - my team, that is - we usually watch a movie together on Tuesday nights; and I would like-" He had been staring down at his hands, but now he looked her eye to eye, blue to brown. "If you would like to come, we'll be happy to have you."

He left the rest unsaid and walked out of the room.

* * *

There. It was done. Final. Nothing now to do but wait. If Marcus knew anything about her, he would have his answer by tonight.

If she was the sort of person he was hoping she was, by tomorrow his team would have as a new member the youngest and most inexperienced officer in Atlantis; if he had been wrong in his assessment of her, then by tomorrow his team would have another explosives expert - and he would no doubt feel free to flirt with any civilian he wanted to.

Major Lawrence's team, to which Cap. Abidal had been assigned, was a good team, sure. But it was a team that, for the most part, stayed on Atlantis. Major Lawrence didn't get her promotion for action, she got it for negotiation; she was one of Elizabeth's minions; her job was to keep the peace with the allies they had, not go and make new friends - or enemies. That was why Captain Abidal was the only other member of her team with military training; the others, including the man who had just left, were all doctors of one form or another. They tagged along with Lawrence and had a field day on planets where they were about as likely to be murdered as Marcus was likely to make it to retirement.

It's not that Lawrence and Abidal weren't brave, it's just that their job didn't necessarily require a lot of bravery.

Being on his team did. In the past year, six men whom he had commanded had died; in short, two-thirds of the people who had served under him were KIA. The odds of surviving for an extended amount of time while on his team were small, very small. Voluntarily accepting an appointment on his team, when given the chance to serve with Major Lawrence, would cement his opinion of her as one of the best, bravest, and, of course, craziest women he had ever met.

If she was the person he thought - or perhaps imagined - her to be, she would join his team.

If, if, if. . .

Waiting would be difficult.

* * *

There wasn't much in the way of celebration food on Atlantis, but Anna did find some blue jello and chocolate pudding in the mess and took some to the labs. She was popular in Atlantis around almost everybody, but nowhere as much as among the civilians - botanists, astronomers, and linguists, archaeologists, they would always go out of their way for her; she supposed it was because she was the only airman - or soldier, for that matter - who was actually curious enough about their research on Atlantis to ask intelligent questions about it. That she also bothered to read up about their fields of expertise so she could hold conversations with them also may have helped endear her to them; for her it was as much about self defense as it was being friendly: she had been stuck on Atlantis for seven weeks with them, and while all the off world teams were, well, going off world, she had joined the military personnel temporarily assigned with escorting the scientists around some unexplored regions of the city when it was necessary. If she had to babysit them, she might as well be able to chat with them intelligently; she had quickly learned that there was nothing like the sheer boredom caused by pacing, fully armed, around a small hallway, watching Dr. Parrish and Dr. Brown jabbering excitedly over some moss they found growing in a crack in the wall. It was enough to drive a saint mad.

She was heading towards Dr. Brown's lab right now; though there were almost twenty years between them they had become friends, of a sort. Anna had no delusions about how close they were likely to become, but, then, she didn't get close to people easily, not since Rebecca. But- but that was then, and this was now, and the one was completely irrelevant to the happenings of the other.

She found Dr. Brown in her lab, surrounded by various buzzing lab rats - also known in some circles as assistants. Oh, so the mold they'd found on that planet had turned out after all. She walked up behind the doctor and looked over her shoulder.

"M3Z-499?"

Katie jumped and swiveled around.

"Oh, hello Anna. Yes, that's the mold from there - it has the most amazing properties." She stretched out her hand to shake Anna's, but blinked when Anna handed her a cup of chocolate pudding instead.

"Do you have a few minutes?" Anna clinked together two plastic bottles of jello and grinned toothily. "I've just found out something you'll like to hear. . ."

Katie glanced at her assistants and nodded.

"It all seems to be under control. Here, we can use Parrish's office."

The room was small, cramped, and filled with file boxes and papers; only a scientist could have gotten so many with a system ruled by computers. Katie gingerly removed some from a chair and plopped down and started on her pudding, while Anna merely perched on top of several handy boxes. Oh, if Parrish were really going to look at them he would have done so all ready, really.

"So? What's the big news?"

Anna giggled. What she really felt like doing was bouncing up and down and squeaking, but she doubted the nervous older woman would appreciate that.

"Well. . . .I've been assigned to a team." She took a spoonful of jello and savored it; blue had never tasted this good.

"Oh, that's wonderful! Who's team is it?"

"Oh, nobody special. . . just Major Lorne's."

Katie actually squeaked and jumped in her chair, slopping some pudding on her lab coat.

"So, did he tell you he likes you yet?"

"Honestly, Katie, I don't know where you get your ideas. Even if he weren't my superior officer, he's almost old enough to be my father - I'm fairly certain I can say that there is no one on this base who could be any less attracted to me than he is." Anna rolled her eyes. "Oh, so how's Rodney doing?"

"Don't you try to change the subject - I've seen the way he looks at you. But Rodney is doing fine; actually, we have a date for tomorrow - do you think I should make cordon bleu or that new fish they got from M3X-472? I'm leaning towards the chicken myself, but. . ."

Anna leaned back and let her thoughts wander as the other woman debated the merits of chicken and fish, respectively. The way he looked at her. . . . Was there something in it, after all? There was no reason there should be, after all, and every reason there shouldn't. He was now, officially, her immediate commanding officer, and, from what she had heard and seen of him, he was nothing if not a man who followed regulations as best he could. And then there was the matter of his age; she wasn't sure precisely how old he was, but he had to be topping thirty-five; not that she had any problem with age differences: her first- and, to date, last- serious relationship had been with a man seven years older than her, but she didn't think it likely that Major Lorne would be attracted to someone so much younger than himself.

No, there was nothing there, nothing at all. But there was that in the way he had rubbed his hands together, had mumbled out his half-praises, nervously, something that almost made her wish there was.

* * *

7:42. Danny was playing solitaire at the table and Jason was sitting on the couch with a surfing magazine. Usually Marcus joined his friend for some black jack or speed, or they made it a threesome for poker, but he didn't feel like playing tonight. He would much rather sit on the loveseat and watch. Not that he was nervous or anything, he just didn't feel like playing.

7:44. Really, he wasn't nervous. He just couldn't get into a comfortable position on the couch: it was most definitely not fidgeting. Really.

7:52. See? Calm. Calm, clear-headed, and did he mention calm? The pacing was just because he was bored. Inside, he was merely calm, calm, calm. See? Calm. Not nervous. Definitely not nervous.

7:56. Well, Cadman was early, for once. Usually she was late - liked to get comfortable or something, and, of course, it took her at least half an hour to do so. Honestly, it's not like she were going on a date with Carson back on earth; it was just a night out with the team. Ah yes, the team. Team, team, team. He wasn't worried. Nope, not at all. He had faith she would come. She would come. And if she didn't. . . what difference did it make? It was just a slight attraction, nothing particularly life-changing. It was meant to be short and stunted before it began; not only was he her commanding officer, he was practically old enough to be her father.

No, nothing was ever going to come of it.

So why was it that he couldn't stop smiling when she walked into the room and sat down to join her team?


	3. Chapter 3

Crossing the Line

Chapter Three

There was, of course, training they had to do as a team before they went on any off world missions. Not that all of the teams on Atlantis did, but most of them - especially Col. Sheppard's - but then again, Marcus' team didn't seem to be gifted with the amazing sort of luck that Team Sheppard was. It also may have helped that he didn't have a 6'5" alien, a woman who had spent her entire life training to fight, and the most brilliant astrophysicist in the galaxy. . . but, all things considered, Marcus thought his team did pretty well in the field.

However, that didn't mean he was going to let them rest on their laurels; no sir. Apart from whatever personal training they already did - and he encouraged them to do as much as possible - he had planned, for two weeks, ten hours a day of drilling, training, and what Cadman not-so-lovingly referred to as "deficiency exorcising:" each member was given a skills test on the first day and subsequently assigned, for three hours per day, to train specifically at those skills they were worst at.

Marcus, of course, believed in leading by example; therefore he spent two hours a day with Schweinsteigger and Ronon, who was showing the two of them better techniques of taking down a larger opponent. This was particularly important in the lieutenant's case, as not only was she particularly lacking in this area, but, unless they went up against a planet of pigmies - knock on wood - most of her opponents would be larger than her.

He had to give her her due; she was one of the hardest workers he had ever seen. It was like she was addicted to it. She was there before the sessions started, practicing, and she always stayed after the sessions ended. Though she wasn't yet as good as most of the military stationed in the Pegasus Galaxy, her skills had improved immensely since she had started, and it was a credit, not only to her ability to pick up on things easily, but on her drive to improve as much as there was room for.

Of course, with every new team member came both assets and defects, and Marcus soon found out his favorite lieutenant was far from perfect. She had, so it seemed, quite the temper when provoked. Not that he had found out for himself; no, she was too sensible to display it to him or one of her fellow officers. Apparently, her rage in this incident was directed at Kavanagh, who was back in Atlantis for a week or two, and who by all accounts had been stupid enough to insinuate something about just how much she liked training with Marcus and Ronon. As they had both been off duty, and, in fact, Kavanagh had accosted her when she was returning from the mess, Marcus thought it really wasn't necessary that he reprimand her. Weir had, and that was good enough for him. In the lieutenant's defense, she hadn't actually started yelling until Kavanagh asked her, in some sleazily worded way or another, exactly what the two men were training her in; and there was a certain amount of restraint to show in that she had only threatened to hurt him instead of actually going through and sucker punching him in the throat. Of course, this behavior, while many considered it justified, was out of line, and Weir had given Lt. Schweinsteigger a very voluble dressing-down in her office, threatening everything from demotion to court-martial for a second offense, then handed her off to Sheppard to be assigned disciplinary duties: cleaning out mucky jumpers, to be exact. Marcus thought that was enough and didn't mention it, but he did assign her an extra hour of training for a week and figured she would understand what it was for. It's not like she didn't do it already, after all.

Well, if she could keep her temper around him and the other officers, then she would be able to keep it when it mattered - when they were off world. Disciplinary problem? Maybe, but not more than Cadman's mouthing off excessively or Riley's sometime hesitance to take orders. Tactical problem? Not so far as he could see.

The only reason he was convinced of now was that Lt. Schweinsteigger was just a human; and that only made her better fitted for an all-too-human team.

* * *

It had probably been wrong of her to make such a scene, but really, when- would that smudge never go away? Anna swiped at the floor of the jumper with the mop, then sighed and got on her hands and knees. Where had she been? Ah yes, the fight. Well, after training with Ronon had left her with bruised ribs, Kavanagh certainly hadn't scored any points when he'd lightly punched them to get her attention - as if he couldn't have just tapped her on the shoulder; wearing headphones did not mean she was incapable of taking notice of anything except excessive force. Eww, had someone thrown up in here? Nasty. And, after all, since when had asking someone ever so subtly if she was having group sex with her superior officer and a member of the flagship team been considered simple, innocent curiosity? Ahh, this must be the jumper where Major Lorne had discovered how to do barrel rolls - with Radek and doc Parrish in the back; no wonder. And speaking of Major Lorne, there was something strange about the way he had reacted to all of this. Everything else had been right: the up-and-ups had given her a punishment, and the scientists had given her a lemon meringue pie and a textbook on the history of archaeology - both of which she found equally exciting, to tell the truth. But Major Lorne, from whom she had expected at the very least a scolding, had quietly assigned her a token punishment - which she already did anyway - and said nothing whatsoever regarding the incident.

No, that was enough. She might be stubborn, but she wasn't - well, usually, anyway - pigheaded; what was true was true, and Anna had to admit it. Her CO had developed a preferential fondness for her; in short, Major Lorne liked her. Well, well, Katie Brown was right after all. Perhaps she should listen to people with a PhD more often. Oh well. She could only hope that this would be the last time he would let his feelings cloud his judgment; not only would it be unfair to the others if he pulled something like this in the field, she wanted nothing to do with advancement or promotion that came as a result of a man's libido.

Well, she had to admit that, whether it would turn out to be a problem or not, it was a bit flattering in its own way; out of all the women he had met in Atlantis and off world, and he grew a crush on her. Strange, but flattering. And, if she were completely honest with herself, it wasn't entirely one-sided; he was, after all, a kind, intelligent, and hard working man - and it didn't hurt that he was uber good looking, either. But that was irrelevant, as nothing would ever come of this, and - good Lord, had Sheppard tied them to a merry-go-round inside the jumper?

* * *

"You should widen your stance a bit - it would give you more balance, I think." Marcus watched Lt. Schweinsteigger pause and shift her stance accordingly.

"How long have you been standing there, sir?" she asked, continuing her routine.

Marcus was pleasantly surprised. She hadn't so much as flinched when he spoke, and he had purposefully been quiet in his approach. She would be a good person offworld for that; surprise was a tactic very often employed by the wraith. Her routine, however. . .

"Long enough. Where did you learn to use the sticks like that?"

She grinned. "Actually, Teyla just started teaching me earlier this week; I thought I'd get some extra practice in if I had time."

Marcus bit back a laugh. "Eager, much?"

"What can I say? I'm a bit competitive, I suppose." She smirked and jabbed sharply at the air.

Marcus ducked back and watched her as she made a series of lunges and feints. She reminded him of his kid sister sometimes; so intent on what they were doing they forgot anything else existed, so energetic. . .so young: there were, really, only a couple of years between Leah and the lieutenant. Had he been wrong, after all, in choosing her for his team? Could he really order someone so young to go out and die someday? Someone like her. . .

There was a graceful quality to her as she ducked and spun and weaved, something Marcus had never noticed before. But there was still something wrong with her stance, something in the way she lunged.

"Oh, here," he said, walking over to her. "Keep your left arm like that and you're opening up for a hit."

He stepped behind her and gently grabbed her arm, moving it forward slowly. Strange, he had never noticed how tense she was before. Probably just the exercise. She jumped slightly when he put his hand above her knee, then eased when he simply bent her leg more parallel to the ground. He wondered what she was thinking momentarily, but stopped. None of his business, really, just like it wasn't a -- a wisp of her hair brushed against his lip. It was sticky, smelled of sweat and shampoo, but he leant into it. Strange, he'd never noticed how her head was at just the right height to rest his chin on, but amazingly it was, and suddenly Marcus was aware only that he was alone in the gym with the woman he found most attractive in any galaxy he had been in, and he was about two seconds away from screwing military protocol and ki-

"Major? Is this right, or should I hold my arm higher?"

Think baby sister, think baby sister, think baby sister. Lorne cleared his throat; his voice was raspy. "No, that's, that's perfect. Uh, yeah, perfect. I, uh, I have to go."

He backed off the training mat, stumbling a bit as he went. She was staring at him with a strange expression on her face, and he hoped she hadn't realized what was the matter with him. He was a sensible man, and he knew what it was; he had known for a bit, now, but he just hadn't wanted to admit it.

He was falling for her.

* * *

Her first mission with the team was checking up on what had been a happy, friendly planet the last time anyone had checked. Unfortunately, the natives had since broken into a state of civil war, which the team only found out when they were captured by a rebel group and had to hide out in a small cave after they escaped. Also unfortunately, this planet was densely populated by gigantic spiders and centipedes, which the small cave they were crouched in was teeming with, and which, perhaps most unfortunately of all, Anna had failed to mention she had a little phobia of. Danny, always the gentleman, had gamely let her hold his hand when the bugs started crawling over them. Dr. Beckett said the scars from the nail gouges would fade eventually - probably much faster than it would take for Lorne and Cadman to forget about that particular incident.

On her second mission she had gotten to know Jason Riley a whole lot better and in ways she had never wanted to. They had known the planet was slightly misogynistic in its customs and physical contact between men and women in public was limited, but since when had patting someone's head been considered proof positive that they were married? And how had it ever become a custom to welcome a married couple by shoving them both, naked, into a sleazy tent at night instead of giving them regular sleeping accommodations? The amazing thing about that one was that, after the villagers turned angry and burned both their clothes, the team had actually walked, with her and Jason wrapped in blankets, three-quarters of the way back to the gate before Major Lorne said anything. Of course, he was doubled over with laughter most of the way after that. Cadman, of course, had been thoughtful enough to radio ahead so that most of Atlantis was standing by the gate and awaiting their arrival. The look on Sheppard's face. . . she had never been so close to strangling an officer. And Danny, from whom she had expected at least a modicum of discretion. . . . Well, it was several weeks before he would stop draping a blanket over her shoulders every time he saw her.

It just wasn't fair, really. Her first two missions off world, and this happened. Ridiculous. After all her team had done before she got there, all the wraith they had killed, she went and got attacked by giant bugs. Honestly. It's not like she had been expecting some great adventure her first time out, but still. The only thing that kept her from holing up in her quarters between missions was, of course, Major Lorne. He had stopped by one day when she was in the weight room and hovered over her while she did bench presses.

"You know," he said, his grin broad, "the first time I went off world with the SGC, I took about two steps away from the gate and fell into an abandoned well. Took four hours to get me out. And Dr. Jackson's first, and fondest memory of me? I'm standing by some trees, bent over, puking my guts out." Lorne bent over and helped her settle the weights onto the bar. He paused, then straightened and made as if to leave, but patted her on the shoulder before he did. "You'll do just fine, lieutenant."

Anna watched his back as he walked away, and not for the first time wondered how things would have been had her life been just a little different, and she had come to Atlantis as a civilian.

* * *

Marcus was finding it difficult to sleep; he would go through the motions, close his eyes and lie in bed for hours, wishing, just wishing he could find rest. But no matter how hard he tried, no matter how many sleeping pills he bothered Carson into giving him, he simply couldn't sleep. He would just get into bed and the questions, the doubts, the worries would pop into his head and refuse to leave.

Had he made a mistake?

It echoed in his mind, consuming him.

Had he chosen her unfairly? Had he chosen her just because he found her attractive? Would he have chosen her if she looked and acted like Rodney Mckay?

Yes, he would think. Yes, eventually, he probably would have chosen her. Had this been a completely impartial decision, then yes, he would probably have ended up choosing her anyway.

Probably.

But now, of course, he could never be sure.

What if she messed up? What if she did something stupid off world? Her first two missions hadn't been spectacular, and while he had faith that she could pull something good off if given half a chance. . . what if she couldn't?

What if she did something that caused someone to die?

Could he live with that? Could he live knowing that a choice of his, a choice made in cold blood, a choice which had been affected by his personal feelings about someone, had caused another one of his team member's deaths?

What kind of a major was he, that he broke one of the most sacred unspoken military rules just in order to get closer to a woman - a girl, almost - that common sense told him he was never going to have? Was he fit to be second-in-command on one of the most important bases the military had ever been involved with, when he made decisions as important as this simply on wanting to get to know someone better? After all, could he honestly say that the reason he had chosen her was for her skills as a soldier and linguist - or was the truth that he found her intelligent and intriguing and had based his final decision on that fact and that fact alone?

Had he made a mistake?

* * *

The major, Anna mused as she poked at her food in the mess, had been a bit grumpy lately, and he looked exhausted. Dark circles under his eyes, headaches, the works. Strange; it's not as if he were doing anything particularly stressful at the moment. Poor thing. Maybe he was an insomniac? Anna hadn't heard anything about that from anyone, and she probably would have: Atlantis wasn't exactly manned with a lot of people to begin with, and as most of them had been here a good year or two, what wasn't known about a person was either intensely private, which insomnia wasn't, or just wasn't worth knowing. She even knew what flavor of kool-aid Colonel Caldwell liked best, for crying out loud.

But, eventually, it wasn't really any of her business. Just as long as it didn't affect his decisions in the field -- and, considering just how much they had been going off world since the blanket incident (not once, to be exact) -- that wasn't likely. The day he started going crazy from sleep deprivation was the day she would start to worry. But until then she did her drills and training like a good little airman and kept her mind off of Major Lorne's sleeping habits.

Hmmm, that almost sounded dirty. Almost. Ahh, what she wouldn't give to know what- but that wasn't any of her business either, and was probably prohibited by any number of rules and regulations. Bah. In some ways, the military was one of the most boring things on earth. True, as Rebecca had always said, the military was not a monastery, but. . . in a situation like this, it was about as close as you could get without shaving your head and putting on a robe. Things like that weren't much talked about, and were very much frowned upon, but they happened nonetheless; she had never herself broken those particular regulations, but she knew some who had, and had gotten away with it. They would never make it to general - or anywhere near it, as a matter of fact - but they had had their fun before they put in for a transfer to another country.

All well and good for the regular soldier or airman, especially enlisteds, but ultimately, whether or not the relationship worked out, transferring elsewhere didn't mean knowing you were probably never going to see him again, didn't mean lying awake at night and wondering if, at that moment, he was in pain, dying, going on a suicide mission. On earth a transfer was just a transfer; she would keep on doing exactly what she had been doing in a different part of the world, and if he died, she would be told how he died, and she would have had no doubts that it was true. On Atlantis, a transfer meant that, having the knowledge of what there was out there in the universe, you were cut off, forever, from doing anything to stop it from taking over. She, who had been one of the key players, would suddenly swept to the sidelines, bound, gagged, and blindfolded, and she would have to sit there, knowing she could have been of help and being powerless to do anything. And if he died on Atlantis, they would never tell her what had happened. They would make up a cover story - or, if they trusted her very much, they would say that it was classified, and every time she thought of him after that, that thought of his life would be accompanied by the inevitable: how did he die? Suicide mission? Did the wraith get him, torture him, feed him? Was it the Genii? Or was there, maybe, an accident when he was in a jumper? Was his last breath a defiance of those who were killing him, or was it sucked out of his lungs when he was flung into space from his broken F302? Was it a plague? Blast shot? Experiment gone wrong? Did he suffer? Did he think of her before he died? Did he say anything? Did he die alone, or were his teammates, his CO with him? And, worse: if she had stayed on Atlantis - would she have gotten to see the end with him?

No, there were reasons the military involved with the stargate program was so strict when it came to things like relationships, and she understood it. There were things, after all, worse than letting someone you cared for never know that you did.

It was a moot point, anyway, because there would never be anything between her and Lorne. Err, Major Lorne. See? Distancing yourself. It wasn't that hard. Nah, that was all good and settled.

But there was still one thing that bothered her, one thing she had to know - ah, speak of the devil, there was the man himself; she could ask him, now.

Anna picked herself up and started walking towards him.

* * *

"Major Lorne - sir!"

Marcus had been so wrapped in his glee he hadn't noticed her until she ran up behind him, slamming into his shoulder when he slowed.

"Sorry, sir, there's just-" She broke off as she saw his face; he supposed he must have been grinning. "Is there something wrong, sir?"

"No, no; everything's great - great." Lorne clasped and unclasped his hands. "Just got off the radio with Weir, actually. We've got a mission, Schweinsteigger - we leave in three hours."

She fell into his pace as he walked towards the gun room.

"What planet, sir?"

He was euphoric, he supposed. Happy just didn't cover it.

"M4X-591." He almost giggled there.

"But- but that hasn't been explored yet."

"I know - exciting, huh?"

"Ummm, sure thing, sir."

It was a long way to the gun room, up several stairs, and by the time they reached it they were in a deep and important discussion about which was better - soccer or football. He could have taken the shorter way, he supposed, but he was enjoying chatting with her.

There was something good about this, something that felt right. All the last times he had spoken with her, he'd been irritated and short with her, or thinking about how he wished she'd kept quiet that day in the gym. They hadn't had a normal conversation since she had gone on her first mission. Granted, this one wasn't of much substance, but still. It was a good omen of things to come.

She looked relaxed, comfortable; she blushed when one of the scientists walked by and winked at her.

Katie Brown, he thought, the one Rodney was seen with periodically. Strange how a woman like that would end up with Rodney, but he was intelligent, and, Marcus had to admit, a much better person than he had originally thought. Actually, he and the scientist had grown a bit friendly since they had first been paired up that time on that sunny planet - not too much, but enough to go by first names. Maybe Rodney knew what was going on between Brown and An- Schweinsteigger. Marcus would have to ask the next time he saw him.

"-and why do you all call it football if you don't even use your feet? Honestly - it's just one more thing that doesn't make sense, really, when you-"

She cut off as the doors opened. The gun room, though not particularly large, was a formidable thing, and not to be taken lightly. One of the few parts of Atlantis that had been changed by the expedition, the gun room was sparse, its only furniture being three benches in the middle of the room. But on all the walls, from floor to ceiling - even over the door - were rows and rows of well-illuminated shelves stocked with hundreds of P90s, 9mms, and every other sort of weapon favored by the Atlantis expedition. If NRA members had a heaven, this was probably it.

Team members, such as Danny and Rodney, and all military personnel had their own guns with their names etched on them. Marcus took his off the rack and patted it lovingly. Ah yes, this was what being in the military was ultimately about: getting to go out there and fight. All the rest - the respect, the self-esteem, the dress blues you got to wear to your friends' weddings: those were all well and good, but, when all was said and done, joining the air force was something he had done, not to prance around Washington in a blue suit, but to fly planes and use P90s, to do what he could to help save the lives as many people as he could. The rest. . . for him, the rest was just a nice little bonus he generally forgot about. And besides - who wore their dress blues in another galaxy? He'd brought his, just in case, but he doubted he would ever have the need -- not to mention the opportunity -- to use them.

He was just slinging on his pack and heading out the door when he remembered something. He looked back; Schweinsteigger was grabbing some ammo from a rack.

"Lieutenant."

She looked up, clearly distracted.

"Sir?"

Marcus cleared his throat; his face flushed a bit when he remembered that day in the gym.

"You were going to ask me something? Earlier, in the mess?"

She fiddled with her gun nervously, and he found himself wondering what would happen if she accidentally shot it.

"That's all right, sir, it'll keep. Really, I-"

He walked over and put his hand under her chin, forcing her to look up at him.

"No time like the present." He placed his hand on her shoulder. "Come on, spit it out."

"I- I was thinking, and-"

"Lieutenant?" There, his no-nonsense tone. Maybe that would work.

She looked up and took a deep breath.

"Did you pick me for your team because you thought I was the best choice for it, or was there something else that made you pick me?"

Oh Lord. In retrospect, he should have told her to keep it to herself. Never, never, never, never - oh, yeah, she was waiting for him to answer.

He cleared his throat.

"I, uh-"

He cleared his throat again. Where were the wraith attacks when you needed them?

"Lieutenant, I picked you because- because you-"

He stopped as his earpiece buzzed.

"Major Lorne, gather a team and meet in my office. Colonel Sheppard's in trouble."

He looked at Schweinsteigger. This would just have to wait.

"Yes, Dr. Weir."

An- Lt. Schweinsteigger looked at him; her expression was intent.

"Flagship team?"

He nodded and put his hand to his earpiece, but paused.

"We'll continue this conversation when we get back, all right?"

She nodded and sprinted out of the room, probably going to get Cadman - if, as he suspected, Cadman was with Beckett right now, she wouldn't have her earpiece on.

As Marcus made for Elizabeth's office, he sighed. It looked like things were about to get a whole lot more complicated.


	4. Chapter 4

Crossing the Line

Chapter Four

"Col. Sheppard and his team were exploring M3X-479; we recently found evidence of several cities around the globe and a small village near the gate, and Dr. Mckay thought the energy readings showed residual evidence of a ZPM. As you know, they made contact with one of the villages yesterday and radioed us, saying the villagers had advanced technology and they would be staying the night. However, they missed their check-in time this morning, and about thirty minutes ago we received this transmission."

Weir walked over to a disc player and hit play. In the background there were sounds of gunfire and blasters, some yelling, what could have been Sheppard shouting orders. Rodney's hurried voice, though bogged by static, filtered through above this into the room.

"Trapped- Teyla unconscious- get- base is- Shepp-"

It cut off into static; Dr. Weir stopped the disc and turned to face them all.

"I'm not going to order you to go on this mission; I'm sure you can all appreciate the danger and the odds of survival in enemy territory of which you have no knowledge." Dr. Weir leaned against her desk and clenched her hands together; Anna was sure the other woman didn't realize what she was doing. "All I can say is that you know what Col. Sheppard and his team have done for Atlantis; this is a voluntary mission, and I won't think the worse of you for staying - but it would be best if you made up your minds quickly."

Sandwiched between Laura and Jason, who had perched on the arms of her chair, Anna couldn't see her CO, but she thought she knew what he was thinking - and she was right.

"You should probably have Carson standing by with a medical team for when we get back - just in case."

Elizabeth heaved a sigh of relief and nodded.

"Godspeed, all of you."

* * *

"Riley, point with me. Danny, middle, Cadman, 'tenant, rear." Marcus strode forward, his hands firmly clutching his P90. "Arms at ready - closest village isn't for four miles, but Sheppard met some natives half a mile from the gate."

He knew he didn't have to tell them to stay alert - not his team. Here, now, was where all that drilling would come into play - and he would find out if the training had been worth the hours they'd spent on it.

With any luck, they would free the other team and make it back to Atlantis with only minor injuries.

Without any luck, Sheppard and his team were already dead and he and his team would be killed any moment in a well-planned ambush.

With bad luck, they would be captured by said ambush and the natives would possess a truth serum and advanced torture machines. Everyone with him was trained to withstand violent interrogation and basic 'truth cocktails', but, having been a captive on several different planets, he had no illusions as to what a race of people with better technology than earth could and could not do; he had been tortured before, and he had kept his mouth shut, but the others in his team were, for the most part, untested. Danny and Riley had been with him one time when he was captured, but that time they had only been roughed up a bit and let go; Cadman, he was sure, had been on an unfortunate mission or two herself, but nothing particularly bad that he knew of. And Schweinsteigger - honestly, he had no idea. Several of her files from the SGC were classified beyond his level, but he had no real idea how she would do under pressure.

Today was her chance to prove herself; today was the chance he would have to see whether he should have chosen Petit.

He could only hope she would do well - for both their sakes.

But now was not the time for that. There would be time for him to think of her -- and of how he should answer her question -- later. Now he had to focus.

* * *

There was an open field of some wheat-like grass in it, with what looked like a forest beyond it. Marcus sniffed. He didn't like it; it was too quiet, and there could be any number of people lying in wait in the tall grass or behind the trees. Had this not been a rescue operation, he might have reconsidered going in at all, but it was a rescue operation, so he contented himself with signaling a 'caution' to his team and plunging into the field.

It was actually a beautiful planet; temperatures in the '60s, the sky in soft grey and pink, light breeze whistling around him. Honestly, if it started drizzling he would think he was back home in Washington.

Something rustled in the grass. Marcus fisted his hand and held it up, and the footfalls behind him stopped.

It came closer, closer. Marcus stepped back as a small metal ball rolled against his feet. What the hell?

It rolled back and a beam of light shot from it and started scanning him. He wasn't going to wait to see what happened next.

"Break for the trees!"

They probably looked stupid running away from a metal ball, but it was a good thing they did - that way none of them were close enough to get hit by the bullets it spat out, or that puff of steam that was probably a sleeping gas of some sort or other that it released right after the hail of bullets.

Of course, even the trees couldn't protect them from the loud, shrill whistle it emitted when it failed to kill or otherwise disable them. In and of itself it would have been harmless, but the race that had built it as an alarm system was far from harmless.

Marcus made it to the edge of the forest and pointed up; his team got the idea and started climbing the trees. If what he thought was going to happen was going to happen, staying on the ground was not an option. Someone was climbing up behind him; Marcus perched on the highest branch he could find that would hold his weight and reached down to help haul whoever it was up.

Ah, Schweinsteigger. Well, didn't this mission just keep getting stranger and stranger.

Within minutes the forest and field were teeming with what Marcus could only assume were security guards: comfortable-looking camo uniform, identical weapons - one larger two-hander on a shoulder strap and a handgun strapped to their thighs. They fanned the forest ground in careful, practiced patterns; all right, he could see why Sheppard had thought they would make good allies - but why had they attacked the other team? And why were they so paranoid? Wraith attacked from the air, not from the ground. There was something strange going on here.

Well, the good thing was that the sky was darkening fast, and soon it would be dark and they would be harder to see.

The bad thing was that the sky was darkening fast, and soon everything else would be harder to see.

The natives had some sort of flashlight, and they were using it to check in the grass and in some of the trees. Fortunately they had missed his team so far; he just hoped it would stay that way.

The branch under Schweinsteigger gave a little, and without thinking about it he put an arm around her waist and pulled her closer to him. He would have done the same if it were Danny, Riley, or Cadman, but. . . it was different with her. Her breath landed on his cheek; some of her hair clumped on the back of his neck. It was sticky with sweat. He shivered; with any luck, she hadn't noticed.

* * *

It's not that she didn't appreciate it,she reallydid. Some women would have thought it was chauvinist, but she thought it was kind of nice. If it had been him almost falling off a tree, she would have done the same thing -- and it would probably have been just as awkward. She didn't really think there was anything sexist about it at all. Actually, it was more than kind of nice. And apparently, he had forgotten he still had his arm around her waist.

Not that she was complaining. Nope, not she. Actually, it was more than kind of nice. Way more than kind of nice.

Oh dear, she sounded like a bimbo, didn't she? Any moment now she'd begin waxing poetic about his oh-so-strong arms and the way he-

Did he just shiver?

Hmm.

That was interesting.

If only this weren't happening while they were hiding in a tree to avoid capture and summary torture and/or execution, she might even have the time to read something into it.

As it was, however, she had to focus.

On the situation at hand.

The situation at hand that did not involve wondering why he still had his arm around her waist, to be specific.

Not that she was complai-

Right. Focus.

Well, on the bright side most of the local Gestapo - well, that's what they looked like, really - were leaving.

On the not-so-bright side, the ones that were left were starting to seriously examine the trees.

It was dark, and they were wearing their black BDUs, but if those people had decent eyesight - and it looked like they did - they probably wouldn't miss the intruders perched in the trees.

Where was a good old wraith attack when you needed it?

All right, they weren't looking through all the trees, just some of them. Now, if they could just miss the four trees that actually had anyone in them. . . and if they were as lucky as that, well then heck, maybe the tooth fairy would descend from the heavens armed with an AK-47, kill all the natives, and free Col. Sheppard and his team.

Actually, what they would probably end up doing was to wait until as many of them left as would, then jump or play sniper with the ones that stayed behind. Hopefully, they would be caught by surprise.

Hmm, she couldn't tell from this height very well, but they all looked a bit taller than she was; in fact, the shortest seemed to be about Lorne's size. Great, so the runts had six or seven inches on her. Well, didn't this just keep getting better and better. Too bad she didn't have a sniper rifle handy - that would even the odds a bit.

There were only eight left now, and spread out. Not good odds, but probably the- whoopsie, not good. Flashlight beneath their tree.

Anna shrank back unconsciously and felt Lorne's arm tighten around her. Strange, she had completely forgotten about that. As smoothly and quietly as possible she started she started to unclip her P90 from the strap and ready it. Lorne's arm disappeared from around her waist and she knew without looking that he was doing the same.

There was a rustling at the bottom of the tree. Great, they were moving the branches to have a better looksie. Right now it was only a matter of seconds until-

"Cheska! Ni hat'mo lagnar, un chantsk." The voice came from the fields.

Anna put her hand on Major Lorne's to stop his movements, then raised her finger to his lips. Time for translations later. On the ground, one of the soldiers let go of his branch.

"Lagnar? Ip hetim?" The soldier sounded skeptical; Anna held her breath.

"Cha!" Yes. Thank goodness. Now, if they would just -- aha, perfect. The second soldier - a woman, it seemed like - walked away from the tree and activated a radio. Then, to Anna's surprise, she started speaking in slightly-accented English.

"Base, this is Specialist Arden. It appears the alarm was activated by a large rabbit. Yes, we're certain." A pause. "Commander Tlalek? The- oh, the prisoners. Yes, sir, I will oversee the transfer myself. "Yes sir, the holding cells on the east of the base. Right away, sir."

Anna held her breath as the soldiers slowly made their way out of the forest. Major Lorne turned a quizzical look at her, but she held up her hand. It wouldn't kill him to wait, and she didn't want to have to repeat herself twice.

* * *

It was a good ten minutes after the last soldier was gone before Marcus dared to use his radio.

"I think we're safe now - regroup."

He dropped down first, then without thinking about it reached up to give her a hand.

Okay, where the hell had that come from? She was an officer in the air force, not a helpless damsel in distress. She didn't really seem to mind, though, and no one else had noticed. Maybe their luck was changing.

All right, Cadman, Riley, Danny - yep, all here. Lovely. He turned to Schweinsteigger.

"It's obvious you understand their language - anything else you can tell us?"

She smiled a little as she redid her ponytail.

"Right - actually, I think I can tell you quite a bit about them. One of their languages - the dialect the two were speaking - I actually studied with Dr. Jackson at the SGC. The fact that they spoke English is the good, well actually the bad, part, though, because if I'm right - and I might not be - then we're nearby a military base manned with an elite group of soldiers from whatever cities or villages there are on this world."

"And you would know this how?"

She shot him a look before answering, and he was momentarily reminded of Gen. O'Neill and Dr. Jackson. Except she actually liked shooting at things, whereas Dr. Jackson had- right, paying attention.

"Well, the only place Dr. Jackson or I have ever seen that language was that one world; the only reason we were able to translate was because there were other languages used on that planet - which happened to include English, German and Aramaic, which both he and I are fluent in. But the society on this planet consisted of four or five different nations, each with their own armies, navies, and air forces, who took the best of the best and formed one super army dedicated solely to fighting the goa'uld, with a small base located near the stargate. If this base is similar to the other, there are holding cells on the west and east sides of the base; in between them are dorms and offices, I think. But that was in another galaxy; they might have a completely different thing going on here."

Danny perked up, and Marcus turned to him.

"Actually, Dr. Itzlou and I have been working on a study on cross-pollinization of cultures between the two galaxies, and there are some societies that seem to be very similar, to at least have the same basic original structure. Of course, this might not be one of them - it may just look similar, as she said."

Marcus nodded; it was a risk they were just going to have to take.

"All right, you take point with me then, Cadman, Riley, Rear, Danny, middle." He unclipped his P90 and held it firmly in his hands. "Arms at the ready."

They started off at a quick pace; they would slow once they got nearer the base. Marcus peeked at the lieutenant; she had a frown on her face.

"Anything else that might be of help, 'tenant?"

She glanced at him and sighed.

"Back with the SGC, they had a similar state of technology - though I hadn't seen any of those round things. Their guns are special - they hold more rounds and sound like they used a silencer."

"Anything else?"

She stiffened, and he had to stop himself from patting her on the shoulder.

"If - and, like I said, that's a big if - if this is a similar society, then there original buildings were built by the ancients, and I can tell you the layout of the prison."

Marcus pursed his lips but let it slide -- for now. This was not the time for personal questions, and, much as he liked to pretend this conversation was private, he knew that Cadman, Riley and Danny could hear every word.

But it was obvious that she had been in a situation similar to Sheppard's -- and it was even more obvious she still had issues with it. Much as he wanted to know if something was wrong with her, he knew it wasn't any of his business, but that wouldn't stop him asking her about it if he got the chance.

He knew he was lying when he told himself it was for the safety of his team - but that didn't stop him lying to himself, either.

* * *

This place was giving her the shivers. It was almost exactly like P4X-511 had. They had kept to the outskirts of the base so far, but, barring a little difference in paint and shrubbery, the layout seemed exactly the same as it had been on that planet.

Not that there was anything wrong with that -- in fact it was a really really good thing, for the mission; it just gave her a really weird vibe of déjà vu. Brought up all bunches of lovely memories -- getting shot, watching people bleed to death, finding out what real torture was all about. Yep, felt just like home.

Hmm, two guards at the back door of this one, it looked like. She handed the binoculars to Major Lorne and pointed out the building, then waited as he looked it over.

Eeh, ants. This was why she did not like crawling on the ground. No, strike that. There were actually many reasons she did not like crawling on the ground. Ants and other creepy-crawly creatures were just one of several dozen.

Well, this was going to be difficult. It was almost pitch black now, the soldiers were probably on high alert due to the prisoners and the alarm they had set off, and there were two - no, make that three - guards on the back door of the prison.

Well, on the bright side, at least they knew it was the prison on the east side of town. Otherwise things would be even less happy than they were.

Major Lorne was tense beside her; she could barely see his hands rubbing together. No doubt he was trying to figure out a way in. If only she had her sniper rifle with her. But, of course, she hadn't thought she would need one. Well, if she ever went on a rescue mission again, she would be sure to bring one. Just prop her up in a nice tree, give her some infrared specs, and-

Hold that thought. If this place was just like that place would be, then there would be- oh yes, there were.

"Sir," she whispered as she tugged on Lorne's sleeve. "Sir - we can use the trees." She had his full attention now. "See, they're so close together I think if someone climbed one he could cross to the next and the next - then take a stunner when he were close enough."

Lorne looked at her.

"He?"

"Just a pronoun, sir - actually, it would probably be better if there were two people; if one got taken out, then-" She shushed; his frown had returned, and she knew he was thinking about it.

* * *

All right, so acting like a human squirrel wasn't something they taught at military school, but he should have thought of it; he really should have thought of it. It was, after all, the only way he could see that would give them the advantage; as of right now, the guards had higher ground, superior weapons, and reinforcements up the wazoo, and all he had was the element of surprise.

There would, of course, have to be at least two people in the trees for this plan to work: one person wouldn't be able to take all three guards out quickly enough for them not to be able to call for help, and would probably end up dead for his - or her - troubles. No, two people would do the trick.

Schweinsteigger, having had more training in sniping than the others, was the obvious choice. He knew this. Everyone else knew this. Not only that, but she was the smallest of them all, and thus would have a better chance of making it from tree to tree without making a noticeable amount of noise.

Cadman was the next smallest, but she was more clumsy than the rest of them, but her forte were explosives and big weapons, so, while decent, she was not quite as good a shot with a 9mm as he and Jason were.

Danny was good at climbing trees, but he was a civilian, and a pretty crummy shot. That didn't matter quite as much with a P90, but when it came to small guns with small targets. . . definitely not.

Jason was a pretty good shot, but he was 6'1" and kind of bulky. He made a good football player, but not a very stealthy tree climber.

Which left him. Target practice had always been something Marcus enjoyed, and he was pretty good at it - he'd even won several tournaments back home during leave. At 5'10" he wasn't too tall, and he knew how to sneak around when he had, to, but he knew Cadman would probably be more quiet than he was. But she was a worse shot. But then again, she wasn't attached to Lieutenant Schweinsteigger, whose odds of getting shot, once she started shooting the guards, would be significantly higher than those of whoever stayed behind. He, on the other hand, was.

Very much so, actually.

Why couldn't she just have been a dumpy forty-year-old man?

But there wasn't time for that now. He had to make a decision, and he knew he would have to live with that decision if something went wrong.

Being a major was far less fun than it was cracked up to be.

* * *

Not that she was nervous or anything, she just didn't like climbing trees in the nighttime. You never knew what insects could be there that you couldn't see - ants, caterpillars, beetles; all sorts of nasty things, really.

But she wasn't nervous. Not nervous at all.

Sometime within the next several minutes she would probably be dead or on her way there; strangely enough, however, that wasn't what she was not nervous about. Anna had been in several situations where it was likely she would die, and she knew she was ready for it if it were to come to that. As long as she made decisions that put her in harm's way she was liable to be harmed, and as long as she made the decision consciously and of her own volition she knew she wouldn't regret having made it, even if it left her dead or paralyzed.

But, all right, she really was nervous. Bugs were just not her thing. And the worst thing was she couldn't even slap them off her hand, as that would make too much noise and compromise the mission. If she got through this thing alive, she was seriously going to camp out in a forest until she got over her phobia; it was just an incredibly annoying thing to have, with a job like hers.

It had started to drizzle a bit, and the trees were becoming increasingly slippery. Major Lorne, inching forward on the branch ahead of her, lost his grip and slipped a bit, but Anna put her hand on his back to steady him. He gave her a quick thumbs up without looking back, and she grinned.

She hadn't really been surprised that he knew he was the next-best choice for this particular task, although that he had chosen to come with her had been just a tad unexpected. Not that she doubted his courage; she knew he had that in spades. It was just that-

Ah, he was standing - the branch he was reaching for must be from the next tree. Great. Now came the fun part. She watched as he swung himself up and off her branch, then 'climbed' the other branch and perched safely in the tree and waited for her. It must be the tree, then. Well, at least she wouldn't have to act like a chipmunk any more.

The difference between her and the major was that, whereas he had simply stood up -- granted, it was difficult to stand on a thin wet tree branch -- and grabbed the branch above him, she had to stand up, balance, jump to grab the other branch, and hope with everything she had that her hands didn't slip and the force of the jump wasn't enough to shake or break either branch.

With any luck, there wouldn't be any insects on it where she grabbed it, either.

All right, standing. . . Good, jumping. . . Good. . . Grabbing. . . Wonderful.

So far, so good. She swung herself a bit and bent her leg, hooking it over the branch. Alrighty, then. Thank goodness for all those extra crunches the major had made her do, although she would never actually tell him that out loud: it might give him ideas. Well, from here on out it was just like climbing a tree back on the ranch.

Except, of course, back at home she wouldn't be climbing a tree in what was now a bad rainfall, and if she fell or made a noise back home there wouldn't be people instantly shooting her with superguns.

But that was best left unthought.

Okay then. End of the branch. Now to just figure out how to- oh. Well, that was nice of him. Maybe some girls might not really appreciate being grabbed by their pants and dragged into a tree, but under the circumstances she really appreciated it.

Well, this was it then. Stretching herself out towards the front of the tree, she reached into her pack and grabbed the stunner inside. Better, Rodney had called them when he'd first shown them to her and Katie. The beams were less flashy, and they knocked people out longer. Better. She only hoped he was right.

There was something just right about doing this with Major Lorne at her side; regardless of the romantic implications, they did work well together. They thought similarly, although he was more analytical and she was more detail-oriented. She should start training with him more often.

Anna checked her night-vision goggles; no way was she going to risk them falling off. All right then. . . Oh, what was this? One of the guards had left, leaving just the two. Lucky. She aimed for the one on her side, knowing Lorne would do the same. Holding her stunner level, she waited for his command.

"On my mark,", he whispered so quietly she could barely hear him. "Three, two, one, mark."

It was rather anticlimactic, actually. Both guards were down before they knew what hit them. The stunners were even better than Rodney had said they would be; she only saw the light of the blast because she was looking for it, and it only made a small, short whine that she almost missed.

Jason, Cadman, and Danny had the guards tied and gagged securely before she and Major Lorne climbed down, and Anna reached for one of the guard's radios as she helped drag them into the bushes. She didn't expect that all orders would be broadcast to all of the teams on patrol, but it might still prove to be useful.

Fortunately, there weren't any guards stationed at the side or, so far as they could tell without walking up, at the front of the building. Unfortunately, the guards at the back door hadn't been carrying a set of keys, and it took Danny almost five minutes to pick the lock. She had never noticed he carried a lock picking kit in his pack; good idea, that. She would have to ask the scientists if they could rustle one up for her.

The prison wasn't very wide on the inside, though it was long. One side was just a row of barred prison cells, and the other side was walled off with several doors and windows on it; if it was like the other planet, that was where the guards were. She supposed no one had ever escaped from here before, as there were no noises coming from the guard room. The lighting was muted inside, probably to let the prisoners sleep - and the soldiers probably took advantage of that. Too bad for them.

Hmmm, the cells on this end were empty so far. Major Lorne reached the first window to the guard room and dropped to his knees, crawling beneath it. She followed suit, and she could hear Cadman and the others doing so as well. She turned to look inside the cells as she passed them.

Empty, empty, random man, empty, random woman, empty, empty, empty-

Voices. Up ahead. She froze before Lorne even signaled and quietly flipped her stunner on. The voices - voice, actually - seemed mildly threatening, and she strained to hear it.

"Well then, Lieutenant Colonel," the man spat, and Anna almost squeaked for joy. "If you refuse to tell us anything, tomorrow we will begin interrogating you."

Lorne rose to his feet and started inching his way towards the cell.

"If you still insist on keeping silent, then tomorrow I will take Dr. Mckay outside and shoo-"

She had never known Lorne could be so quiet while wearing combat boots - not to mention how good he was with a stunner.

Once she reached the cell the major had already freed Sheppard and was sawing away at Ronon's bonds with his knife. Teyla was sprawled on the floor, her head in the colonel's lap, apparently unconscious. Anna knelt by Rodney and started working on his ropes; funny, all this technology and these people still used ropes.

Colonel Sheppard noticed her at Teyla and grinned reassuringly.

"Just a tranquilizer - she'll sleep it off."

"I can carry her to the gate." Ronon, his hands free, grabbed the knife and started working on his ankles while Lorne and Jason, who had wandered in, briefed Sheppard of the situation.

Anna looked up at Rodney as he she rubbed his hands to restore circulation. Aside from a nasty-looking bump on his head and some minor chafing on his wrists, he looked all right.

"They haven't tortured you yet?"

"No - although you should probably be fussing about Colonel Stoic over there."

Sheppard shot him a look as Cadman helped him stand.

"My ribs are fine, Rodney - they're not even bruised." He paused. "No need to tell Carson about this, okay?"

Anna couldn't help but smile as she helped a complaining Rodney up and hustled him out of the cell. They still had to make it back to the gate, but so far so good.

* * *

By the time they reached the middle of the forest, the rainfall had turned into a full-out thunderstorm. Not happy conditions to be running in. Marcus stared at Ronon. Even without a woman slung over your shoulders.

So far, so good. From what he could see -- and from what Schweinsteigger had heard over the radio she'd borrowed -- there was a power outage back at the base, and it was taking some time to fix. With any luck, that would cover their escape.

Of course it had to be not two seconds after he thought that that an alarm sounded off in the distance, and the radio stuttered to life.

Schweinsteigger said something, but it was lost in a thunderclap. She jogged up to him and Marcus motioned Jason to fall back to her place and let her take point with him instead.

"I think they've figured out something's wrong, major."

Marcus nodded and made a hand motion; double time. He felt sorry for Ronon, but it just couldn't be helped. They were probably going to run into trouble sooner or later, but with the closer it was to the gate, the better.

They made it out of the forest in fifteen minutes, which was pretty good considering Ronon was carrying a deadweight and Colonel Sheppard, despite his protests to the contrary, had badly bruised, if not broken, some of his ribs.

Not quite good enough, though. Behind them Marcus could hear shouts - distant at first, but closer with every passing minute. Not quite good enough at all.

Halfway across the field, just under six miles left to the gate. Marcus turned around just as there was a burst of lightning. Oh, not good.

There were about fifteen of them, running at full speed, less than a quarter mile away. Marcus sighed and looked to Colonel Sheppard, who nodded and grabbed his weapon. Fortunately they had found the other team's guns before leaving the prison, otherwise they would have had no chance at all. Ronon lowered Teyla to the ground and stepped in front of her. Next to him Cadman handed Mckay his P90.

Marcus, following his CO's movements, released his gun's safety and crouched down in the grass, waiting.

* * *

Okay, there was one; he was letting his flashlight swing back and forth, which meant he was not holding his gun with both hands, which meant he would be a good target for the civilian. Slowly, so as not to ruffle any grass, she reached over, patted Danny on the shoulder, and pointed the guy out to him. He nodded and aimed his gun in the direction of the flashlight.

Her movement caused one of the figures sitting across from her to look up. She stared at him, waiting for the lightning to figure out who- but of course, Major Lorne. He was looking back, and they sat their for a moment, just staring at each other. There would be some serious talking when they got back to Atlantis. If they got back, the realist part of her insisted on adding.

But now the soldiers were shooting at indiscriminate patches of grass, and this was not a time to think of chatting. Anna pushed herself up on her heels a bit, took careful aim, and, not a second after Colonel Sheppard, opened fire.

The man went down with a short whimper, and she smiled, but now the knew where she was hiding. One ran toward her, and she jumped up and tackled him.

The next several minutes were sort of blurry. She knew she knocked that guy out when she downed him, and she knocked off another two with her P90, but then that was out of ammo so she pulled out her 9mm. She got another one with that, but then someone jumped her from behind, and she dropped it in the struggle. Someone - Ronon? - grabbed the guy on top of her and chucked him to the side, except that now her stunner had no power and she was only armed with her knife. Bugger.

Only a few left, though, and everyone on her side seemed to be standing. Oopsie, guy coming at her with a gun. She pulled back her arm to throw the knife, then saw a glance of motion at her side. Someone, it seemed, had found Teyla. Not good. Ermm, guy coming at her; he was fiddling with his gun. Gaah. Anna swiveled and threw the knife as hard as she could; it went through the guy's throat. Well, at least Teyla was safe for now, but-

Anna doubled over as something punched her in the gut. Ah yes. Bullets. She'd forgotten just how much fun those were.

The man in front of her shot again, and she stumbled backwards; she turned to look for someone, but all she saw was grass. Funny, she didn't remember falling.

Oh Lord, that was a lot of blood. Could she really lose-

Funny, wasn't it? The first time she had gotten shot had been on that other planet, and now probably the last time would be on its twin. Was this how Rebecca had felt? So tired and-

Oh, the thunderstorm was getting worse - or were those shots instead of lightning? She couldn't tell.

Maybe she should go to sleep and-

Oh look, Major Lorne. He was yelling something - trying to tell her something, she thought, but she couldn't make it out. Colonel Sheppard, too. They looked really worried; maybe she should tell them she was-

She was really tired. She let her eyes flutter close, but opened them again when someone jerked her shoulder.

Too painful. Not worth it.

Slowly Anna shut her eyes and let herself drift away.


	5. Chapter 5

Crossing the Line

Chapter Five

It hadn't been like any of that slow motion stuff they showed you on the movies, not really. There was a moment there when he had thought things were moving a little slower than they should be, but the logical side of him knew it was just because things like this should feel rushed, hasty, certainly not in real-time; things always did seem slower when you needed them to go by quickly, too.

It had been then, when he was fumbling nervously like a newbie in front of a drill sergeant to load his weapon; it had been then that time dilated in one way or another, and he just couldn't be able to get his brain and his eyes to work at the same speed.

One minute she was standing there and he was working desperately to unjam his P90, and the next he knew he hadn't been fast enough as she stumbled backwards and touched her fingers to her stomach.

There was one part of his mind that told him to raise his gun and shoot once he got it ready; there must have been, because he saw his arm go up, his finger push the trigger, and the soldier fall and die. That part of his brain was the one that made him check to see if there were any more soldiers that he needed to take care of, which there weren't.

But the rest of his mind was suddenly jammed, blank.

He didn't realize he was running until he stopped and kneeled next to her.

"Anna?" He leaned over her and took a look at her wound. Oh, not good. Marcus placed his hand on it, putting pressure on the wound. He raised his head and looked around for Sheppard. "Colonel!"

Marcus winced as one of his fingers scraped against some piece of metal lodged in her vest. Really not good. He pressed down harder; blood seeped through his fingers. No no no, come on, she couldn't die, she couldn't die, she couldn't die-

"Major?" Colonel Sheppard walked through the grass towards him. Ah, right, the grass covered them both.

"Sir!" Marcus waved his hand briefly before reaching back into his pack. Come on, he knew he had some bandages in there. . .

"Major, I think we're about ready to leave, if you don't mind my-" Sheppard broke off and ran over, kneeling on Anna's other side. "What happened?"

Marcus brought out the roll of bandages and started tying them around her wound as best he could.

"She was hit twice, sir." He paused as Anna's eyelids started drooping. "Lieutenant? Come on, Schweinsteigger, stay awake for me. We're going to get you back to Beckett, just stay awake, you got it?" Marcus looked across at his CO, who was holding Anna's hand in his. "I can carry her to the gate, sir, but we have to leave. She's bleeding too much."

Sheppard nodded and looked down at her, poking her in the shoulder as her eyes fluttered close. "Lieutenant?"

Anna's hand went limp in Sheppard's; Marcus finished tying off the bandage and, as gently as he could, grabbed her by her shoulders.

"A little help, sir?"

Sheppard nodded and smoothly helped Marcus lift her off the ground and place her on his arms lightly. A fireman carry would have been easier, but it also would have aggravated her wound excessively.

Marcus rose and tried to find his balance. The rain was pouring now; the mud was thick and difficult to step through, and it didn't help that there was practically no visibility. He hoped they could find the gate. But of course they could - the MALP had a tracking device. What was he thinking? God, he hoped they could find the gate.

Sheppard was in the lead and running, now. Marcus broke into a jog. He could feel her blood running down his hands; the bandages weren't enough. She needed to get to Beckett.

He ran faster.

What if that wasn't enough? What if she died?

No, Anna wouldn't die. She couldn't die. She was too-

What was that? Oh, only two miles left. Good.

He didn't remember much about the rest of the trip back; mostly there were bits and pieces: the cold, the difficulty of navigating the thick mud without falling, the litany he'd kept repeating in his mind -- must keep running or Anna dies, must keep running or Anna dies. . .

Then there was this overwhelming sense of relief when he finally saw the gate in the distance. Of course by that time they were being chased and shot at again, and he wanted nothing more than to get back to Atlantis. To Beckett. Beckett would take care of her; Beckett wouldn't let her die.

He remembered the woosh of the gate as it connected, and diving through it; Radek was standing next to the gate looking surprised.

Marcus vaguely remembered looking up and yelling for Beckett and a med team as he sprinted to the infirmary, every second one second closer she was to dying; Anna had started coughing blood.

By the time Beckett had whisked her out of sight into the surgery room she was barely breathing.

Marcus sat now, calmly, in a chair by an empty infirmary bed and waited, rubbing his hands together nervously. Cadman and Riley were both pacing in circles on opposite sides of the room, and Danny was sprawled on a bed with Rodney; he was tapping his fingers on a pillow. Sheppard and Ronon were both sitting next to Teyla's bed calmly.

Marcus leaned back in his chair. Why was Beckett taking so long? They had been sitting here for three hours all ready, and there hadn't been one bit of news since the surgery started. Standing, he walked over to Beckett's desk and looked at the clock. Three hours and fourteen minutes, to be exact. He sighed and walked back to his chair, swerving to avoid Cadman.

It wasn't that he didn't have faith in Beckett; he did, by all means he did. But good as the doctor was, there were just some things that even Ancient technology in Dr. Beckett's hands could fix.

Come on, wasn't there a nurse they could send outside with an update? Anything?

He stood up again and walked over to Beckett's desk. Three hours and seventeen minutes.

Lovely.

No, he had faith in Beckett. He had faith in Beckett. Beckett could do amazing things.

Really. He had faith.

But right now, he could really, really do with an update to substantiate said faith. Even someone sticking their head out of the door and saying "things are progressing" would be better than nothing at all.

Hmm, he was still standing by Beckett's desk. Whoops. Oh, was that a coffee machine?

Three hours and twenty-four minutes. The coffee was brewing and he was tapping his fingers on Beckett's computer.

Three hours and thirty-one minutes. Marcus sat back down and sipped his coffee.

He had faith in Beckett. Beckett wouldn't let her die. He hoped.

He set the coffee aside and leaned his head on his hand. It was now, now that he didn't know if he would see her tomorrow, that he could admit it to himself. He had known her for eight months, and in that time he had used words like 'attracted' and 'intrigued', but he had to admit that there was more than that. Knowing her had deepened it, and he cared for her far more than he was supposed to, more than he had ever expected to.

Love her? Not really, not yet, no. But he supposed it was inevitable if things continued this way.

He didn't wish he had told her, not really. Even on Atlantis, where military policing of matters was lax, where many unwritten regulations were ignored or, ultimately, flouted, there were just some rules you didn't break, some lines you didn't cross. Marcus understood and respected that, and by no means would he ever ask his subordinate officer on a date, for example.

But there was something to be said for knowing there was someone for you, of knowing that-

Of knowing what? He had no idea if she had ever even looked at him twice; there was that question she had asked, but that didn't mean there was anything on it from her side. For crying out loud, he was her CO and just about old enough to be her father. Even if she-

Even if she lived.

Where was Beckett?

Five hours and eighteen minutes. Rodney, despite the copious amounts of coffee he had imbibed, was dozing lightly, as were Sheppard and Danny.

"Major Lorne?"

Marcus lifted his head and stared at the nurse in front of him. She held a pair of scrubs.

"Here- why don't you change? You can-"

"No thanks, I'm fine." There was no way he was leaving the room while she was in surgery. What if Beckett came out while he was gone? What if-

The nurse, however, wasn't taking no for an answer. Frowning, she dumped the scrubs in his lap and put her hands on her hips.

"You can change behind the screen if you want to, but you will go change now. I won't have you dying of pneumonia because you're too stubborn, so go."

Lorne ached; he had run twenty-one miles, six of those with a 100-pound woman in his arms that night, and the last thing he felt like at that moment was standing.

"Look, I appreciate the-"

"That's an order, major." Marcus looked over; one of Sheppard's eyes was open and staring at him. So, not dozing after all.

He grumbled, stood up slowly, and walked into one of the curtained areas around a bed. And people said the colonel didn't abuse his power.

The scrubs were dry and loose, a welcome change from his BDUs. Marcus just left his uniform where it was and trudged back to his chair. He had barely sat down when Dr. Weir walked in.

"Any news yet?"

He shook his head. "Beckett's still operating, but we haven't heard anything."

Dr. Weir nodded and settled herself on the floor next to Sheppard's chair.

Six hours flat.

Marcus stood by the coffeepot again, rubbing his fingers together in frustration. He had given his chair up for Katie Brown, who had walked in a half hour ago. So had Zelenka, and Dr. Parrish, and one of the astronomers whose name he couldn't remember. Anna was generally well-liked by the scientists, after all. In fact, he often had to remind himself she was military; after the civvies had found out she had a master's in linguistics they had been pestering her with translations, and she was practically one of them now.

He cut off his thoughts angrily. All that was well and nice, but where was Beckett? Six hours and two minutes now, and they still had no word whatsoever on how she was doing, or whether she was even still alive. For all he knew she could be dead several minutes over, now.

He put another scoopful of coffee into the filter as Lindsay Novak wandered into the room.

Where was Beckett?

Six hours and twenty-four minutes.

Rodney and Danny were awake again, and talking in hushed tones with Brown and the astronomer. In their corner, Sheppard, Ronon and Dr. Weir were discussing something - the mission, no doubt - and Teyla, who had finally woken up, was sipping some water and listening intently.

It felt too quiet, though, the way they were speaking; it was like they were at a wake or a funeral.

Marcus rubbed his hair and glared at Cadman, who, though no longer pacing, had been tapping her foot for the last two hours. Come on, the surgery couldn't take much longer, could it? Surely they would-

All conversation ceased abruptly as the door to the surgery opened and Carson Beckett walked into the room. He paused and blinked at the crowd in the infirmary.

He didn't look sad - that must be good, right?

"Well," he enunciated ever so slowly in his thick brogue, making Marcus want to strangle him.

"Well, one of the bullets punctured her lung and collapsed it before we started, and the other tore through her radio and caused considerable damage with the shrapnel. I was able to remove all of it, I think, though we'll have to do another minor surgery to make sure, and we managed to restabilize her lung before any considerable damage was done." Beckett turned to Marcus and, letting a small smile cross his face, continued. "It's impossible to be one hundred percent certain, but the wee lassie has a strong fighting streak, and, though she'll be out of commission for a good month or two, I think she's going to make it."

Marcus let out the breath he'd been holding as muffled cheers spread across the room. He laughed easily as Cadman walked over to Beckett and planted him a kiss that would have made a frat boy blush.

There were going to be some serious discussions when she woke up, and there would probably be plenty of problems to work out, but right now his lieutenant was alive, and that was all that mattered.


	6. Chapter 6

Crossing the Line

Chapter Six

There were low, hurried voices in the background, and the room smelled like disinfectant and that delicious Hawaiian-blend coffee. Anna cracked opened her eyes experimentally but shut them at the glare of light that hit them.

Something rustled beside her.

"You can open your eyes now; I turned off the overhead."

Anna did; it was darker now, though still light enough to make things out fuzzily. Major Lorne was sitting next to the bed with a thick paperback book in his hands. He smiled and shut the book when she looked over at him.

"Hey stranger." The major reached over and pushed a button on the wall by the bed as he spoke -- to call Beckett, she assumed.

Anna opened her mouth to say something, but her throat was too dry. Lorne grabbed a glass of water sitting by his chair and, lifting her head with one hand, put the glass to her lips.

She supposed it was a bad sign that she was exhausted by the time she had taken a few sips -- not to mention her side was burning like she'd just done fifty crunches. But at least she could speak now. . . well, kind of.

"How long?" It was really more of a croaking sound than actual speaking, but it got the point across well enough.

"Just about four days, lass, and a grand scare you gave us while you were at it."

Anna turned her head as Dr. Beckett, his hair messed and a lab coat thrown over what looked like sheep-print pajamas, walked over to her, syringe and stethoscope in his hands and a look of unadulterated glee in his eyes.

"Now I'll need to check on a few things, if the major will excuse us."

"I'll be back as soon as he's done," Lorne murmured as he reached over and patted her hand.

Beckett made a clucking noise and gestured threateningly with the syringe.

"Come on, now, I didn't get up at this hour of the night to chit chat." He sighed, staring at Lorne's back as the major walked, slowly, out of the infirmary. "You can come back to your vigil in ten minutes, major. That one," he continued, turning to Anna, "only got several hours' sleep after I sedated him yesterday. You'll be happy to know he's not left your side else since he carried you in here, the stubborn man. Now, let's check on those bullet wounds of yours, shall we?"

Anna smiled. Later she would broach her question again, and there would be some serious talking done, but for now she was content with the thought that he had stayed with her. No matter what other people might think, there was something really nice about having a sleep-deprived man reading books at your bedside. And the dark circles under his eyes didn't really detract from just how nice those eyes looked, not much. But that could be saved for later, because right now, despite all of Beckett's prodding and poking, she was starting to feel so. . . very. . . sleepy. . .

He was there, of course, the next time she woke up. He was still lounging in in the chair next to her, leafing through the book. Anna glanced at the title surreptitiously: Rainbow Six. Ah, a kindred spirit; finally, a man who knew that it was more than just a videogame.

He still, apparently, hadn't noticed she was awake, so she took the opportunity to look around the room. Danny lay sleeping in the next bed, Cadman curled like a cat at his feet. Jason was sprawled in a chair up against the wall, also dozing. Neither Beckett nor any other doctors or nurses were readily visible - though you could never tell where one was going to pop up at any moment.

She and Major Lorne, it seemed, were the only waking people in the room. Anna wasn't sure whether this was good or bad - but pretending to sleep and thinking about it was out of the question, because he had put his book aside and was watching her intently. His eyes, usually lit with a teasing glint, were strangely calm, grave but sympathetic. The circles under his eyes were much lighter now; looked like he had gotten some much-needed sleep. Lucky him.

Anna realized she was staring; not that it was rude - he was staring too. But she should probably say-

"Feeling any better?" Lorne asked in hushed tones so as not to wake the others.

-something. Anna watched him reach down for a glass again, and he held it up for her to see.

"Water?"

She nodded. Again he held it to her lips and again he slid his arm under her shoulders and lifted her slightly. He did it so easily, without any trouble. Maybe she should try this sick thing more often.

Or then again, she thought as her side throbbed, maybe not. He set her back down gently and she sagged back onto the pillows. Eesh. She hated being weak.

Major Lorne set the glass back down on the floor and returned to staring at her for a bit.

"So. . . how're you feeling?" He whispered

Anna giggled quietly, then winced as she felt it. Stupid bullets. They took the fun out of everything.

Lorne leant forward and put his hand on hers as she felt her side through the scrubs.

"Should I call Beckett?"

"No," she whispered, letting her hand fall to the side - with his still holding it, she noticed. "I just don't think I should do a lot of laughing any time soon." She looked up at him; he was frowning a bit. "What happened, sir?"

He sighed and stared at the wall, and she knew he didn't want to think about it. Well, too bad; she had to know.

"You were shot. Twice. One of the bullets hit your lung, and the other one blew up your radio, almost killed you with the blood loss from the shrapnel, then went and lodged about two centimeters from your spine." He looked back down at her and brushed some hair away from her forehead. His hand was warm, soft. Gentle. "By all rights, 'tenant, you should be dead several times over, not to mention paraplegic. Good thing we have Beckett and his voodoo." He grinned, and she wondered what Mckay had been saying about the doctor now.

"You've been around Rodney too much, sir," she whispered.

He laughed softly. He always looked so much younger when he laughed; she loved it when he did - although it usually followed a joke of which she was the punch line.

"I have, haven't I? And it's just going to get worse - Teyla's going on leave, so our team's stuck babysitting Rodney until you get back on your feet."

She snickered. "Well, on the bright side, you'll get to learn the purpose of all the components of a ZPM by heart. Exciting stuff, that."

"Oh, come on lieutenant, who needs excitement when you can learn all about Dr. Kavanaugh's mathematical mistakes? Now that is special."

Ouch. She really had to remember to avoid giggling. Not only would it wake everyone else, it hurt like a-

"Are you sure you don't want me to call Beckett for some pain meds?"

He looked so nice and sympathetic, and her side hurt so much she almost said yes -- but she really didn't feel like falling back asleep right now, or, even worse, going loopy in front of him. She had learned long ago that hallucinating in front of a man you thought incredibly nice and good-looking was a situation to be avoided at all costs.

"Nah, I'm good." She laid back for a moment before something occurred to her. "Did Beckett happen to mention just how long it'll be until he'll release me for duty again?"

"Couple months, I think."

Well, that sucked.

"I see." Stupid bullets. She was never, never getting shot again. Teyla would just have to save her own butt next time. "And then you're going to have me do drills until I'm back to normal, aren't you sir?"

Lorne smiled irritatingly. "Why lieutenant, you make it sound like it's a bad thing; don't worry, it won't be too horrible. Just think about all the fun you'll have - fifteen mile runs on the bridges at five every morning, weight lifting after breakfast, and, hell, I'll even join you for a session with Ronon after lunch. Fun, fun, fun! What do you think?"

"With all due respect, sir, I think Dr. Weir and Col. Sheppard might forgive me if I strangled you right now."

"Well, at least we've found a bright side to the fact that you're too weak to lunge off the bed."

Oh, that was it. Lifting her free hand, she swatted his away from her other playfully. He caught them in one of his and, holding her wrists, reached down and dunked his fingers in what was left of her water, then brought them up and sprinkled her face. She got one of her hands loose and swatted him lightly on the arm. He laughed, caught himself as Cadman mumbled in her sleep, and let her hand go.

"All right, you win. But just you remember, lieutenant - I won't forget this; just wait until our sparring sessions. I've been practicing."

Anna groaned. She had almost forgotten about those drill sessions. . . Oh well. At least she didn't need to start tomorrow. She hated being weak, though, weak and helpless. She was already feeling tired from the scuffle she'd just had; she was a bit short of breath, and her side was aching. Two months of this? Best not to think of it.

She let her head flop back against the pillows and, reaching up with effort, switched off the overhead light. It shined right into her eyes when it was on. Strange the ancients hadn't thought of that when they had built the place. They'd thought of almost everything else, apparently.

Lorne leant back in his chair and picked up his book. "You know, if you fall asleep now, 'tenant, I'm not going to be able to read -- and you do not want to see me without my Tom Clancy fix."

She grinned. "If I fall asleep you can feel free to turn it on, sir; it was just bothering my eyes." She didn't want to fall asleep right now, anyway. She had been waiting for several days to - all right, so maybe she had only been awake for one and a half of those days, but the point remained that she had been waiting to talk with him for quite some time, and there was no way that she was going to let this chance slip away from her because she was feeling a little bit tired.

"Sir, about the question I had asked you before, I really-" She paused. What did she really want, after all? To know if he thought she was a good soldier? To know if he thought she was a good person? Or to know if he-

"I would have chosen you anyway."

Marcus hadn't meant to blurt it out quite that way, but there it was. The truth; or, at least, what he sincerely believed to be the truth. She'd been about to say something, too, and he had cut her off. He waited, letting her gather her thoughts.

"Anyway?" It was an innocent enough question, but the way she said it was full of something that reminded him of his mother whenever he'd tried to lie to her.

His mouth went dry. Well, it was now or never. Now or never.

"Lieutenant," he whispered, the words refusing to form themselves, "I'm not going to say that at the time I chose you I had some- some thoughts that were unbiased and preferential towards you, but that's no longer the case."

She drew in her breath sharply, and he winced.

"That is no longer the case, because I- well, I-" This was more difficult than explaining 'the nudie incident' to Sheppard and Weir had been.

She scooched up a bit, raised her head.

"Major Lorne, you don't have to go on - I was out of line with that question, and I-"

He raised his hands and 'shushed' her loudly, but quieted when Danny flopped over onto his back. What he wouldn't give for a little privacy; well, in for a penny. . .

Marcus took a deep breath.

"No, I want to - I have to explain." He looked down at his feet; hmm, he hadn't noticed he was rubbing his hands together again. He really had to stop doing that. "That's not the case any more, because- because if you were a civilian, we would have had this conversation a long time ago."

In for a buck. Schweinsteigger wasn't saying anything. Oh, he was going to get fired. Fired, fired, fired. Hmm, he needed to buff his shoes.

Schweinsteigger still hadn't said anything.

Maybe they would let him resign?

Marcus raised his head and looked at her. She was just sitting there, and her lips were twitching a bit. She was either crying or giggling.

Sheppard was going to kill him. He was going to-

"To tell the truth, sir," she whispered, her face blank and steady now. "If I were a civilian, I can think of several things we might have done a long time ago, and none of them involves a lot of conversation."

Not to mention Caldwell was going to make it impossible for him to-

Had she just said what he thought she'd said?

That couldn't be right.

There was- but he was-

Maybe she'd gotten hit by those bullets a little harder than they'd thought.

"An- Lieutenant. . ." Marcus trailed off. This was different. "Lieutenant, you do realize that, apart from my being your CO, there is also the slight matter of. . . well, age difference to consider, and. . . well. . .you're - you know, and I'm-" he twirled his fingers in the air. "You know."

She grinned.

"You mean the fact that, at the time I was teething, you were buying your first car?" She said it matter-of-factly, like it was of no more importance than when she corrected his grammar.

"Well. . . Pretty much, yeah." Maybe she didn't realize- no, she did; maybe she just wasn't taking it seriously enough; or maybe she simply-

"Do you have a problem with that?"

"No.. ." Strange, he hadn't even thought about it with regards to himself. The thought hadn't even crossed his mind; she was as level-headed and mature as any other person on Atlantis, and when compared to some - the name 'Kavanaugh' kept popping into his head for some strange reason - she was by far the superior. The most common complaint he had heard about age gap relationships was that people changed as they grew; well, he had been in relationships with women his own age before, and they changed too: one minute they were, if a bit miffed, at least used to the fact that you could be gone for days studying deep space radar telemetry, and the next minute they nattering about how unimportant his work was compared to a day at the park, then subsequently suing for possession of their shared apartment.

"No, but you- you're young; maybe, before anything happens, you should-" He cut off. How could he say this without sounding, well, rude and-

"What, date around? With all due respect, sir, I think I can make decisions about my own life without advice from. . . Well, you, I guess." She blushed slightly, and Marcus noticed that she was looking a tad pale - if 'pale' meant that you matched the scrubs and pillow shams.

He sighed; he kept forgetting she had been so close to dying just six days ago and, if his own shooting experiences were any judge, just being awake and chatting was probably making her feel like she was running a marathon. Now was not the time to argue semantics about a hypothetical relationship that, in this galaxy or any other, would most likely never really be an actual possibility.

"You're right. I'm sorry, I was just being - you know." He smiled and tapped his fingers on the coverlet, and a silence descended over them for several minutes. He had almost thought she had fallen asleep again when she spoke.

"So. . . Where to from here, sir?"

His fingers thunked on the cloth. Where to from here indeed? By all rights they should never have had this conversation, ever. He was her superior officer. They were on a base where either one could die at any given moment. Things like this were simply more complicated over here - and he was going to have to get used to it. But the question remained - where to from here?

"Well," he said, looking her in the eye, "We could just leave things be, for the moment."

"For the moment." She nodded. "We can deal with this later; if things change."

Marcus smiled and pushed a strand of hair away from her face. "Friends for now, then?"

"Sounds good to me," Schweinsteigger said as she leaned back against the pillows. "But right now I think I'm going to fall asleep."

"And the others so wanted to see you when you woke." He reached down and grabbed his book.

"Too bad." She almost managed to look sorry, but stopped to stifle a yawn. "You won't leave, will you?"

"Of course not." He opened his book, settled back, and turned on the overhead light as she closed her eyes. "I'll wait for you."

He sat with the book open on his lap, but it was a long time before Marcus read a word.

Yes, he would wait for as long as he needed to. This one was worth it.


	7. Chapter 7

Crossing the Line

Chapter Seven

It was two weeks before they got to have a private conversation again -- and, if the strange looks Beckett had been giving him were any indication, their first conversation might not have been quite as private as they would have hoped. Or maybe Cadman had just told Beckett one of those embarrassing stories he had babbled thanks to Zelenka's brew. Either way, as long as the nurses didn't know, Marcus thought Beckett knew enough of the military to keep his mouth shut.

He was walking through the mess when he saw that the Daedelus had, apparently, brought food back on their last supply run. Earth food. And not just any earth food: Caldwell had brought back fruit.

The lieutenant liked fruit. He was halfway across the mess when that one hit him. But it was true; Schweinsteigger really, really appeared to like fruit. In fact, last time the had met for movie night - had it been three weeks all ready? - she had brought along this gigantic bowl of fruit salad, easily enough to equal one of Ronon's good-sized dinners. When no one else had felt like munching on the alien fruit, she had downed it all herself -- even that strange lilac thing that tasted like syrup. Actually, come to think of it, Marcus had never seen her eat a meal on Atlantis without a generous plate of fruit nearby.

Maybe he should take her some? The nurses probably wouldn't think of it for a while, if they did, and by then it would probably all be gone. Earth food - even fruit - didn't last long on Atlantis.

And if she didn't want any, he could always make Riley eat it or take it back. There were some joys, after all, to being a CO. They weren't many, but they were good.

Marcus looked at his watch. He wasn't back on duty for two more hours - plenty of time for a lunch; and he was feeling hungry, after all. Might as well enjoy some company while he was at it.

Anna had never expected that getting shot twice would be a good thing, but it was. All right, so it wasn't necessarily a good thing, but hey. Always look on the bright side, right? Well, good or not, it was giving her a chance to do something she hadn't done in months, since she had been assigned to Lorne's team.

She was studying. Reading. Absorbing textbooks. It was like paradise. She had forgotten just how much fun it was; it had just been so long.

She had just gotten her master's and was planning her doctoral studies when P4X-511 had happened, and then the jump to officer; she had always thought she would do the military thing for ten years or so, then request a desk job at the SGC and get her doctorate while working.

But then she had gone and helped rescue SG-1 when they were captured, and Landry was so happy he suggested her for Atlantis. The rest, as they said, was history.

She had to admit, though, that coming to Atlantis had, on a purely academic level, certainly broadened her horizons. She had never expected to know as much about astronomy, botany, microbiology, and, yes, even physics - although the math she would never, never touch - as she did now. It was an amazing thing, having some of the most brilliant and respected minds in all these different fields around her, happy to answer her questions, no matter how amateur they were. It really was something.

But at her heart she was a linguist, and there was definitely not enough of that to go around. Because the percentage of distinct languages in the Pegasus galaxy was miniscule compared to the amount encountered by the SGC, there were at the moment only two linguists assigned to Atlantis, and one of them was on maternity. Needless to say they were swamped, and she tried to help them out as much as she could - but, what with her military duties, that just didn't happen often enough. There was simply not enough time in the day to do all that she needed to, much less wanted to; and there went her ideas about preparing for her doctorate.

But now. . . now she had been shot. Now she was disabled - incapacitated, rather - for a time. Unfit for military duty. And, though she couldn't think of anything she would willingly give the military up for, there was something to be said for being a nerd. It was fun, really fun. Of course, listening to books on CD wasn't as good as actually reading and highlighting the textbook, there was only so much she could convince Beckett to let her do - and it's not as if hospital beds were built for studying, either.

Anna laid back on the bed and closed her eyes, the words pouring through her brain. Yep, this was the life.

Hmm, she was getting a bit hungry. Maybe one of the nurses would-

Oh, Major Lorne. How nice. And he'd brought a tray with some-

Melon. That was melon. Earth melon. And strawberries. And, oh goodness, were those cherries?

Heaven. That's what it was. The last two weeks had been a dream, and she'd really died and gone to heaven. Cherries. Heaven. It made sense, it really did. It would also explain why Lorne was here.

Now if only she could bring herself to believe that heaven had IVs in it, she'd be good.

Lorne grinned at her as he sat down and put the tray on his lap.

"Hungry?" He pulled out the tray attached to her bed and started putting plates on it. Fruit, fresh coffee, vegetable soup and pink lemonade. Scratch that; paradise had nothing on this.

"I was getting lunch and thought you might want some company." He paused and, had she not been hampered by the tray, she could have kissed him right there. "Unless, of course, you don't want it. . ."

Anna grabbed her fork and waved it in the air at him.

"Touch it and die, sir."

He laughed and, setting his own tray aside, got up and dragged over another chair, onto which he put his lunch.

Hmm, spaghetti and meatballs. If only Beckett would let her- oh well. She had fruit. That was good enough for her.

"Sir," she said, glancing over at him, "you're a wonderful human being."

He grinned and stuffed a meatball in his mouth.

Anna sighed happily and looked at the bowl in front of her. Where to begin? She popped a cherry in her mouth and savored it; good times. Textbooks on tape, delicious food, even more delicious lunch date - what was not to love?

All right, so he wasn't exactly a lunch date; well, according to Webster's dictionary he would qualify as one, but when using the purely colloquial sense of the word, he would by no means-

"So, what's all this?" The major, tired of eating in silence, had grabbed her CD player and was swinging the headphones around.

"Oh, nothing much. I've just been doing a little studying lately, in case I ever get my docto-" She cut off as Lorne started laughing and choking on his lemonade.

"You know," he said once he had recovered his breath, "When I was your age I used to pretend to be sick to get out of studying for my college classes. But you. . . you know, Lieutenant, you can wave around an M16 all you want, but you're really a nerd at heart." He smiled and slurped some spaghetti. "Actually, it's kind of cute."

She raised an eyebrow at him, but couldn't stop herself from grinning. She doubted she would be able to get angry at him for quite some time, no matter what he said. He had stayed with her when she was sick, and he brought her fruit now that she was well. And that was worth something, at least in her book.

Not twenty feet away, hidden behind a computer and a stack of lab coats, Carson Beckett lounged in his office chair, put his hands behind his head, and grinned. Full meal, chatter, and giggling; yep, according to the rules, that qualified as a date - and two days before the cutoff, too. That made $20 from Rodney, $15 from Zelenka, $20 more from Novak, and $35 from Katie Brown. Thank goodness Laura had seen the Major walking to the infirmary with the fruit; otherwise he probably would have gone to check on the Colonel's ribs.

Yes, the Scottish doctor mused as he took a soothing sip of coffee, money pools were a beautiful thing.


	8. Chapter 8

A.N. Important! This chapter contains some pretty disturbing stuff - not excessively graphic, but disturbing. It starts out fluffy, but it doesn't stay fluffy long. Read at your own risk.

Crossing the Line

Chapter Eight

It was, as Beckett had predicted, about two months before Anna was well enough to start training again. By that time, studies or not, she was ready to go back; sitting around the infirmary was good for a week or two, but two months was just overdoing it. There wasn't exactly a whole lot to do around the place, just sit around and wait. And wait. And wait.

There were a few things that kept her sane: the first were the textbooks the scientists had given her. Good stuff - and they had even gotten her some about linguistic anthropology. Also of importance, of course, were Cadman, Riley, and Danny, who smuggled popcorn and wheeled in a TV every week for team night. Another was the scientists - and, to an extent Team Sheppard. Even Ronon came to see her once or twice; they talked about submission wrestling and had a deep discussion about whether Zelenka's brew was better than or equal to a good old shot of vodka. It was actually pretty interesting.

But the light of her proverbial world, the sparkle in her eye, the thing that kept her on this side of insanity, was Major Lorne. Every day, without fail, he would bring her a cup of coffee and a bowl of fruit, and they would sit down and talk for hours -- or until someone called him away. It was Lorne, not one of the nurses, who, under the scrutiny of an eagle-eyed Beckett, helped her stand up and walk for the first time since she had been shot, and when her knees buckled he simply picked her up and carried her back to bed. It was Lorne, not Cadman or Katie, who Beckett called when she had the nightmare about P4X-511, and he stayed with her for hours, just sitting next to her bed in his t-shirt and boxers, chatting with her, reassuring her until she fell asleep again, and not demanding that she tell him what had happened on the planet, just listening when she wanted to speak; for that she was grateful.

It was incredibly sappy and cliché, and Anna knew it. Kind of like something on a bad T.V. movie; but she didn't care, not really. It had shown her a side of him she had never expected to see, and, honestly, what human being wouldn't find it endearing? But there was one thing he did that tipped the scales, something that, though it wasn't so, well, emotionally bonding, was such a nice gesture it showed just what type of man he was.

When Anna had first arrived on Atlantis her training had been scheduled in two daily clumps: from 5:00 A.M. to 9:00 A.M., jogging and drilling, and from 8:00 P.M. to 9:00 P.M., weight room. Simple, and she was generally a morning person so it worked out great for her; it was also a plus that the hallways were usually emptier at those hours, anyway. So it was interesting when, after he had a long and serious conversation with Beckett about what, exactly, Anna should and should not do, and when she should and should not do it, Major Lorne gave her her new and improved training schedule.

5:00 to 6:00, A.M., jogging.

12:30 to 1:30, training session with Ronon.

5:00 to 6:00, weight room.

8:00 to 9:00, team drilling.

Maybe Beckett had told him to make sure she rested in between? She knew she sometimes overdid it a bit, but he had never minded it before; in fact, he usually joined her.

She thought it was neat when he showed up to jog with her. He was notorious for linking a short, early workout, even beating Sheppard and Ronon on occasion. Usually he worked in the weight room, so she knew he was probably changing his routine to keep her company.

Not that she was complaining. It was nice of him. Really nice, actually, although she hated it that he had to slow down so much so she could keep pace, and they had to cut off the run early when she got nauseous.

She sincerely believed it was just luck that he had an hour free that day when it came time for the training sessions with Ronon and 'the boys' - also known as marines fresh off the Daedelus. The fact that Major Lorne decided to waste his hour off getting thrown around by a 6'5" alien while demonstrating Satedan Army moves to the newbies was more a testament to the fact that, as Katie put it, "Men do stupid, stupid things when there's an attractive woman nearby." Of course, Katie had been referring to Beckett and the unfortunate "It's just a gerbil" incident, and Anna knew she wasn't considered particularly attractive, but Lorne was a man, and, attractive or not, she wore heels but liked the Lethal Weapon movies -- and if that didn't count for something, what would?

It was more than a bit strange that he was also in the gym from 5:00 to 6:00 that day, but he did work out a lot so she supposed it made sense; that he always 'just happened' to be on a station not four feet away from her was not so much strange or coincidental as it was his converting into mother hen mode every time she tried to do something that might aggravate her injury. Mildly annoying as it was, she did appreciate the gesture. She may not have liked the idea of being babysat and continually watched over by her CO, but she liked the idea of being crushed under 150 lbs. of weights even less. It was all relative, really, and being able to watch the major in his gym clothes for an extra hour did do a lot to even things out. She was only human, after all.

Perhaps, she thought later, her time in the infirmary had made her stupid, because it wasn't until the third day that he 'happened' to show up at Ronon's training that she went to Beckett.

Of course, he told her that he had told Lorne that she didn't need more than fifteen minutes in between workouts as long as she did things lightly. Well, maybe the major was just making sure she actually 'did things lightly.' Yeah right.

Next on her list was Chuck, the gate technician. She actually knew him from her days at the SGC, and he had sent her a get-well card on the computer. One hour and three bowls of orange sherbet later, Anna had Chuck's IDC and password and complete access into the Atlantis personnel scheduling system.

Well, wasn't that interesting? Not four minutes after her CO had ordered her scheduled changed, he had done a few minor modifications to his own - specifically, shifting his free hours to match her training.

Nice little cosmic sort of coincidence, wasn't it?

This called for a long chat with Katie.

Earlier that month:

It had been a long, long day; Marcus had babysat Doc Parrish to his weekly botany adventure off world with several marines while Danny and Riley were on leave. The rest of the day had been spent exploring a few new sections of Atlantis, having to spend each second of it listening to Rodney and Zelenka pick at each other, arguing about whether the energy readings in this area of the city should be one decimal point higher or lower than what they were.

It had been a long, long day.

Marcus flopped down on the bed and sighed. He hadn't even gotten to visit Anna- that is, the lieutenant that day, and he missed it. Most people assumed he just did it because he was her CO, and even the few who suspected something of what was going on thought he was doing it just to be nice; after all, Atlantis wasn't a place that produced a lot of topics for conversation, and he had been chatting to her from one to three hours a day every day for the last three weeks. But he really enjoyed the time he spent with her. No matter how long they talked, or about how many different things, they never seemed to run out of things to say. Currently they were debating the merits of American football vs. what she called 'normal-person' football. Marcus: 0, Schweinsteigger: 3 -- 4 if what she had said about that Swedish player was true.

Yeah, he would definitely have to get her breakfast tomorrow morning; there was still some of that pear-type stuff left over from that planet with the - what were they called? Muchits, micklets. . . meh, he was too tired to think. All he wanted to do right now was sleep, and tomorrow he could go get- tomorrow he could go get-

Stupid woodpecker. It had been drumming away on his roof for the last two minutes. It was the one thing he hated about living outside of Seattle. Well, that and-

Oh, thank God. It had stopped. Now if he could just-

-footsteps.

Marcus flung out his arm as someone started shaking his shoulder.

"What the-" he stopped as the lights came on to reveal a pair of sheep-print pajamas under a lab coat. Oh, yeah. Not in Seattle anymore, Dorothy. All right, but what was Beckett doing in his room at two in the morning?

"Anna's had a nightmare of some sort, and she's hysterical."

Good thing he'd forgotten to take his tennishoes off that night; he didn't much fancy running down four hallways of the best-polished floor in the galaxy in his socks. Then again, he though as he sprinted down the stairs, he was only wearing his normal pajamas - t-shirt and boxer shorts. Oh, what Cadman would give to-

Ah, the infirmary. Marcus reached to open the door but stopped as he was yanked back. Oh right. Beckett. He'd forgotten about him.

It was a credit to the colonel's training that Beckett had been able to keep up with him, Marcus supposed, but it was a minute before he caught his breath. One long, slow minute.

"I've been weaning her off the sedatives, and I didn't give her a dose at all tonight. She seemed fine, but the nurses told me she got agitated and woke up screaming bloody murder, talking about dying on some planet, very distressed."

Marcus tapped his foot impatiently and Beckett held up his hand.

"Major, you know her better than anyone else on this base; there are several files in her case classified so I don't know what happened - just the injuries she received. They are-" Beckett broke off. "There are injuries there that could only have come as a result of extended periods of torture." He paused. "Anna is my patient and it is my duty to protect her; right now she is vulnerable, and to put it bluntly I want whoever goes into that room to be the person who understands her the best and, above all, cares for her the most. I don't care about those particular military regulations, and whatever you say stays with me - but I need to know if I should call Laura or Katie instead."

Marcus ran his fingers through his hair. "Listen doc, I. . ." He smiled slightly and put his hand on the door. "Let the others sleep."

The lieutenant was sitting on her bed when he reached her. Her knees were drawn up to her chin and she just sat, staring at the wall in front of her. She was covered in sweat, but the infirmary was a cool seventy degrees. Marcus didn't think the shivering was a result of that, though. No, he had seen something like this before. It was a soldier at the SGC; his team had been captured by a goa'uld, and they had been tortured for weeks before, one by one, being dragged before the goa'uld and executed. He had been the only survivor. It had taken him weeks to recover, and he had never been the same again.

Marcus pulled up his chair and sat down by the bed. If she had noticed him she was doing a damn good impression of oblivion.

Rule number one when dealing with these types of things was, if at all possible, to avoid startling the patient. She still hadn't noticed him.

He shuffled his foot, and she jumped slightly but didn't look at him. He cleared his throat.

"Lieutenant. . ." Oh, screw that. The regs could burn for all he cared. "Anna?"

She didn't look up, just put her hands on the back of her neck and stared at the sheets.

"She wouldn't stop looking at me - she wouldn't stop looking at me. Even when I sleep, she just won't stop looking at me." She rested her forehead on her knee for so long Marcus thought she had fallen asleep. Then he saw her shoulders, shivering - no, shaking. She was crying.

He put his hand, tentatively, on her shoulder. When she didn't shy away he leant up off his chair, put his arm around her.

"Anna?" Slowly, deliberately, he climbed onto the bed and kneeled in front of her. "Anna, it was just a dream. Just a dream."

She looked up, but the lighting was so dark he couldn't see her face. Her voice was shaky when she spoke, and he could tell she wasn't thinking about controlling it. This was not like her.

"But it wasn't just a dream - it wasn't a dream, it was real." She shuddered, and he put his arm around her again, drew her close to him. "It was real, and I didn't stop it. . . I told her I would save her and she died, and she wouldn't stop staring at me. . ."

She broke down then, and Marcus just sat there, holding her to him, rubbing her back, telling her it would be all right. It was some time before she calmed down again, but he didn't care; it didn't matter if she had stayed like that for days. There was no way on earth he would have left her.

"So. . . you wanna talk about it?" he asked once she was quiet again, slumped against him limply; at least she wasn't shaking anymore, he thought as he traced circles on her back with his hand.

She let out a long breath. "I'll have to sooner or later, I guess."

He moved her away from him, gently, and lifted her chin with his fingers. "Hey, I would never, never make you tell me if you didn't want to. You know that, right?

She gave a laugh - weak, but hey; progress, right? - and backed away from him a bit. Absentmindedly she put her hands on one of his and traced words on his palm with her thumb staring fixedly at her pajama pants all the while.

"I know - that's why you're the only one I would tell." She paused. "I know."

Marcus nodded his head and pressed her hand. It was a minute before she spoke again, but she knew what she had to say now.

She and Rebecca had been friends since they had joined the SGC, despite their many differences. Rebecca was several years older, an ambitious lieutenant who was planning a nice career in the military, hopefully culminating with a nice house in Washington. She was sixth in a close-knit family of eight children, and she wasn't shy about jumping in to grab attention. For all that, though, she was a generous, caring girl; when she found out Anna was staying in Colorado for her first Christmas alone she made her go to her parents' house - which they had done for every holiday, and most weekends off, afterwards. But this wasn't about Rebecca, it was about P4X-511.

Anna was second in the gate room that day; Capt. Linda Hansen, SG-14's brave and surly leader, was standing by the ramp, waiting. She was always early. Anna said hello and shuffled her P90 from hand to hand; Hansen ignored the hello and raised her eyebrow at the weapon. Oh well. Karma would tell. Someday.

Lt. Mark Cooper was in an equally happy mood when he walked in, slumped against the ramp rails, and glared moodily at the gate. He didn't say hello to Anna either, but she didn't mind in his case. His girlfriend had just dumped him, poor guy, and he and Anna had had a heart-to-heart about life and relationships. He was probably just embarrassed.

Rebecca bounced into the gate-room with Ian Smith, the team civvie - an anthropologist, to be exact. They were so happy together. They had gone on their first date seven months ago, and Anna had helped Ian choose an engagement ring the day before. But this wasn't about Rebecca and Ian, was it? It was about the planet. . .

P4X-511 was a fairly boring planet, from what she could tell so far. Trees, trees, field, trees. . . Oh yeah. If that didn't get you excited, there probably wasn't much that could. Anna spent most of it doing riddles with Rebecca while Mark and Hansen stomped around and Ian dove into wheat fields and nattered on and on about advanced farming techniques. It had been over three hours before the first soldiers appeared.

The civilizations on P4X-511 were, at first sight, what the SGC had been looking for all these years. They were an advanced race, capable of banding together their armies to fend off the goa'uld. They had better weapons than earth - similar, but silent and more deadly. The only thing that surprised the SGC about the whole thing was that it hadn't been SG-1 that discovered them.

With O'Neill's blessing, SG-14 stayed on the planet for two weeks and acted as diplomats for earth to a gathering of the leaders of the four nations. Luckily at least one nation spoke English, and Anna picked up enough of the other languages to translate. The people's demands were surprisingly simple - shared knowledge of some science projects Major Carter was working on, several thousand subcutaneous transmitters, some naquadah, and a few other minor quibbles. It was amazing, really, and Anna never knew whether not the had ever planned on dealing, or whether it was all just a sham.

It was night of the sixth day of the second week. SG-14 had just reported in to the SGC and were invited to a banquet to celebrate the upcoming treaty between both worlds. The havel juice tasted different than it had the other days, but Anna was told it was the result of a different fermentation process. She didn't think about it until later.

She woke up in the dark. There was a gag over her mouth, rope around her wrists and ankles, and all around her was pitch black. She was in a cell, but she couldn't tell how big it was; there was a rope that led from that tied around her wrists to a hook on the wall located too high for her to reach. She tried screaming through the gag, kicking the wall, straining to break the rope. Nothing worked.

The first thing they did that morning was take out her transmitter. She couldn't believe they had ever been stupid enough to tell them how those worked - or where they could be injected into a person's body.

She knew that her team wasn't due to report for three more days, and the SGC would probably wait up to a day after that to send anyone looking for them. Four days; she just had to last four days, then she could go home.

They came back that afternoon and took her to the interrogation room. They were an advanced race, even in that area. Earth had its pain injections and its techniques, and Anna had been trained in those, but. . .they had nothing on this. They seemed to have found a way to make everything worse, more painful, from electric shock 'treatment' to the damned injections; earth's only caused pain for a short time, but theirs stayed longer and caused seizures.

They kept asking her questions about random gate addresses - had this world been taken by the goa'uld yet? Had that one been devastated by the virus that had hit it, or had the scientists found an antidote? Had this world - and on and on. She didn't consciously remember telling them anything; she doubted she was coherent enough to most of the time, anyway. But afterwards she always wondered, always doubted.

This went on for a week. She had no idea what had happened to her teammates; the could have died in the torture for all she knew. But at the end of the first week they dragged her out of the building into the forest. Ian was already there, kneeling in front of his guard. He didn't blink when he saw her, but there was no hiding the relief when they dragged out Rebecca, followed by Mark and Hansen. They were forced to kneel in a circle and watch as one of the soldiers walked behind Mark and shot him in the head.

The next week was even worse than the first. She didn't even mind them seeing her cry now, and she sobbed like a child the third day when they came for her. She had no idea why there had been no rescue yet, why they were still there. Surely the SGC hadn't believed whatever lies the soldiers had told them, had they? So why didn't anybody come?

The first week they had given her female guards outside her cell at night, but they changed that this week. She fought them off the first two days, but that just made them up the torture and skimp her meals, leaving her too weak to do anything.

The last day of that week they were dragged outside again; the others were a mess, and Ian didn't look like he could last much longer. So it made sense, in a way, that they killed Hansen that week; she looked the least likely to break.

The last thing was beyond anything she could have imagined possible. More torture sessions, longer torture sessions, and then back to her cell where she could sleep until the guards came on duty. They had taken all the rope out of the cell sometime the week before: Anna suspected someone had tried to finish things before they could. At least they were giving her bigger meals again. They probably did it so she could live through the torture, but she didn't care. It made her just that little bit stronger, and maybe that would be all she needed.

The last night that week, the night before they would be taken out to the forest again, one of Anna's guards forgot to unclip his handgun when he came in. She was merciful; the two on duty died within seconds of being shot. Rebecca's guards weren't quite so lucky: Anna managed to sneak up behind them and had them knocked out before she shot them. She wondered if they woke up before they finished dying; probably not.

Ian was asleep when they found him, just returned from an interrogation session. It was a while before he could manage running, and she and Rebecca had to half-carry him part of the way into the forest. They hadn't gotten far when the alarms rang out.

Anna was the first to get hit; a lucky shot got her in the shoulder when they were about ten miles from the gate. She was down for a few seconds, but Rebecca and Ian dragged her along until she could run again. She put pressure on it as best she could and hoped for the best.

Five miles to the gate. Ian was hit in the arm. He said it was just a flesh wound, but she and Rebecca both knew better; his arm hung, limp, at his side. Flesh wound wouldn't have done that. But there was nothing for it but to run.

One mile to the gate, and the soldiers were catching up. They were in open field now; no more dodging behind trees. But they were still alive, weren't they? Maybe they could make it. . . maybe they could make it. . .

She could see the gate now, and there were only two soldiers guarding it. Anna raised the rifle she had taken with her injured arm. Hurt like hell, but she guessed she could still shoot. Yep, she could. The two never knew what hit them.

Just twenty feet - twenty feet and they would be home. Ian sprinted ahead and started dialing home. Fortunately one of the guards had a long-range transmitter with him. Not as good as an IDC, but it would have to do. Anna turned it on and shouted her name and ID into it. With any luck Walter would get the gate open in time. If he didn't, well. . . At least it would be quick and painless, something that wasn't happening if they stayed here.

Rebecca shot a round at the nearest soldiers. Not in range yet, but close. Anna turned around to tell Ian to hurry and-

-she stumbled back as they shot her again, same shoulder. God, that hurt. She looked over. Where had Rebecca-

Oh no. No no no no no. Anna dropped to her knees and ripped open Rebecca's shirt. Blood everywhere. She had been shot three - four? Times. Not good, not good, not-

"Anna?" Rebecca choked, coughed. She opened her eyes and stared at Anna. No no no no no. "Take me home, please will you-"

"Stay with me 'becca, we'll get you home safe soon." Anna looked up as she spoke; Ian was standing in front of the active gate - he'd just seen Rebecca. He opened his mouth to say something and-

-fell back into the gate, blood on his chest, when the bullets hit him. She looked down; Rebecca was still staring at her.

"Take me- take me home to-"

She died with her eyes open, staring.

Anna didn't remember getting shot again or dragging her back through the gate, but that's what she must have done because the next thing she remembered she was in the infirmary and a nurse was fiddling with her IV.

Ian died twenty minutes into his surgery; two of the bullets had pierced his lung.

Three months later she walked out of the infirmary and into O'Neill's office. He gave her a commission in the air force, a month's leave, and the open offer of staying with his sister while she was off. She took the commission and the time off, but bought herself a plane ticket and went to see Rebecca's parents. They deserved more than a visit from some impersonal Colonel who told them their daughter was brave, didn't they?

When she returned to the SGC she was assigned to SG-12, who pulled off a rescue of SG-1 during General Landry's first month in office. She took out the goa'uld who was keeping them hostage with a tranq. rifle and made his capture possible, and for that she got Landry's thanks and a ticket to Atlantis.

She took it gladly. Nothing could ever make the nightmares go away, nothing could ever stop Rebecca from staring at her whenever she closed her eyes - but at least she wouldn't have to walk into that gate room every day and remember. At least she wouldn't have to think of it every time she walked into the locker room and got ready for a mission.

But then, Anna thought as she looked up at the Major again, nothing ever turned out quite the way you wanted it to, did it?

Marcus couldn't think of anything to say. What could he, after that? So he moved up to her, enfolded her in his arms, and held her, and it was a long time before he let go.


	9. Chapter 9

Crossing the Line

Chapter Nine

Her mother had been in bed with the flu on her first day of preschool, and her dad went to work early, so, after twenty fruitless minutes of trying to do her own hair, Cassandra Lorne had walked into her big brother's room, plopped down on the middle of his bed, and refused to move until he fixed her hair.

At seventeen years of age, there were really only two things that Marcus was afraid of: firstly, that someone would steal or vandalize his beloved 1964 convertible, and, secondly, that his sister would tell his parents what had really happened to the bottle of vodka they thought had been thrown out by accident.

In light of the circumstances Marcus decided to count his blessings; after all, she was just asking him to do her hair, not play 'teatime with the fairy princess.' Hair, he could live with.

Of course, she had to think he did her hair so much better than mommy did, and so every morning, without fail, for one year - until he left home - Cassandra would wake up, get dressed, and run into her brother's room so he would do her hair.

Marcus actually thought it was kind of cute.

She used to chat to him while he was figuring out her braids, nattering on about preschool this and preschool that, asking him when she could have a boyfriend, why she would want a boyfriend in the first place, and generally being a nuisance. But there was something she always used to tell him - a poem she had learned. How did that go? Something about love. . . Love being. . . something. Oh, that was it - love is- come on, it was on the tip of his tongue. . . love is the-

Marcus woke up. That was one strange dream. He hadn't even thought of Cassie in weeks, since her last letter, and that stupid poem she used to recite - what was it?

Oh well, it would come to him - with his luck, probably in the middle of a firefight. Hmm, 5:42 - if he got up now, he could just beat Schweinsteigger to the bridge for their morning run.

She was a bit slow this morning, he noticed; training with Ronon yesterday had been particularly rough, and she was probably feeling it right now. Well, it's not like he needed to sprint the whole way, was it? He would do just fine with a nice, steady jog this morning - he could make it up in the gym that evening.

He knew she knew he wasn't going as fast as he would have, normally. But she wasn't going to say anything, and he wasn't going to say anything; they'd already had another conversation after she found out he was spending his off hours working out with her. It's not that he wanted everyone to figure out what was going on with them - honestly, he had no actual idea himself, so how anyone would was a mystery; it's just that, because they were on Atlantis, and because they were on one of the forward teams, any day could be their last. And if either one of them died, he wanted to know that he hadn't missed out on something with her just because they were in the military; he loved his job, sure, but right now if it were a choice between her and the air force he had no idea which way he would go, and he wanted to know.

Strange; the last time he had thought that way about anyone he had been standing in a jewelry store, shopping for an engagement ring. Funny the way things worked out, wasn't it?

He smiled and looked over at Anna. She was jogging along complacently, her head bobbing to whatever her ipod was playing. Knowing her, Bach. She was the only person he knew who could headbang to classical music. It was kind of-

Love is learning how to walk at someone else's pace.

Marcus paused.

Schweinsteigger stopped and looked back. "Something wrong?" she asked, taking off her earphones.

He looked at her, nonplussed, and shook his head. "No, I- I just remembered - I just remembered something."

She looked at him for a bit, then shrugged and put her earphones back on. "Well hurry up, then; don't want to be here when Ronon and Sheppard come by, do you? I swear, every time he looks at me he's planning something for the training session. . ."

Marcus plastered on a smile and caught up with her. It didn't mean anything, really. It was just the first line of a poem his sister had taught him twenty years ago - completely irrelevant to his situation.

So why couldn't he get it out of his head?

The meeting with Caldwell, Weir and Sheppard had not gone well – not well at all. All right, he hadn't expected Weir to agree with his actions on his last mission; so maybe taking the village leader hostage had been somewhat less than diplomatic, but under the circumstances he thought it was justified: they were going to string up Danny, for crying out loud. And it really wasn't Cadman's fault about the sacred mascot – honestly, the panther had jumped from a tree and attacked them. How were they supposed to know it was just a 'test' of their courage and fortitude? And for the last time, Riley and Schweinsteigger did not, by any means, look like a married couple; and, to be quite honest, any civilization, primitive as it might be, that thought the normal way to treat strange married couples was to spike their drinks, dress them in traditional garb (which, apparently, consisted of a Princess Jasmine costume for her and a 'Howl the magician' one for him), then have a recommitment ceremony in front of the village elders, was not, in Lorne's opinion, a civilization from whose friendship Atlantis would gain very much. Second time he'd had to carry the lieutenant back to the gate, except that this time, rather than being shot, bleeding all over him and worrying him half to death, what part of her that was conscious was hung over with whatever they had spiked her drink, and she had managed to. . . upchuck on him – quite spectacularly, at that, grossing him out like few things had before, not to mention unleashing Cadman's virtually endless supply of baby jokes. At least Riley had been lucid enough to trudge along, and at least the villagers hadn't burned their clothes this time around. Although, to be quite honest, that particular costume had been kind of- Right. She was his junior officer and two years younger than his baby sister, and the costume was probably being archived by the anthropologists right at that moment. If only. . .

Focus. He needed to focus. On the meeting. Where was he? Oh, right. So he could understand Weir's disagreeing with the way he had handled the situation – militarily, that is – but he had expected Caldwell and Sheppard, being military men themselves, to at least understand, if not condone, his actions. But, of course, they'd both gotten out of the wrong side of bed this morning; either that or they were both being taken control of by an alien disease which made them cranky. As if.

Come to think of it, it seemed to be a bad day for the personnel on Atlantis; even the lieutenant was in a bit of a mood. He had approached her earlier to see if she wanted a snack and she had practically bitten his head off. From what he had heard one of the linguists had resigned, and they were bothering her for help more than ever, but still. . . No reason to kill a man for offering you a cup of fruit and almonds, was it?

Marcus walked into his room and frowned. Today was going so badly. He just needed to-

He growled as he hit his knee on the side of his bed. Well, didn't things just keep getting better and better? And that stupid line was still stuck in his mind- why couldn't he remember the rest of the poem?

Marcus yanked off his earpiece and flung it on the bed. With any luck – not that there seemed to be any hope of that – there wouldn't be a crisis in the next half hour.

And if there was, well too bad for Atlantis.

Radek stepped away from the jello and, balancing his tray carefully, looked around the mess. Hmm; three o'clock; most of the scientists were either working or sleeping, and Sheppard's team was out. . . somewhere, so the place was filled with flyboys and marines he mostly didn't know. It's not that he had anything against the military types - quite the contrary, in fact: it's just that he hadn't really had a chance to- oh, there was Major Lorne sitting by himself; surely he wouldn't mind him.

Radek had actually gotten to know the major a bit since they had been on the Orion together, although that was probably due more to Anna than anything else. He had always had a soft spot for her: she reminded him of his cousin, Inska, and he always liked it when she came by his labs to say hello. But ever since that morning - though Beckett still refused to tell them what had happened, stubborn man - when he and Rodney had seen the major leave the infirmary, clearly exhausted and wearing what was clearly his nightwear, almost every time Anna showed up at his lab, or Miko's, or Rodney's, the major was soon to follow. It was strange, he had to admit. A month ago he could have bet Major Lorne didn't even know how to get to the labs, much less want to, but now you could not tear the man away from them. Or, rather, you could not tear the man away from the lieutenant - which was much the same thing.

"Is this seat taken?" Radek jiggled his water bottle as the major looked up confusedly. "Or are you expecting your team?"

The major stared at him for a full second before – sniffling? – and looking down at his bowl of chocolate pudding.

"Sure thing, Zelenka. My team already ate."

Radek, somewhat unnerved, sat down. He picked up his fork and stirred the pasta, studying the major while he waited for it to cool. He hadn't noticed it before, but the major's face was a bit – blotchy, was the word. His shoulders were slumped, his eyes were wet, and he held a crumpled Kleenex in one of his hands.

"Major, are you . . ." Radek put down his spoon as Lorne looked up at him. "Are you all right?"

Lorne stared at him for a full minute before answering; it was somewhat unnerving, actually. Finally he blinked. It seemed as if he were waking up from a trance.

"Yeah, I'm – I'm fine." The major dipped his head and took a sip of coffee. "I don't know what happened – one minute I'm fine, pissed off about the meeting, and the next thing I know I'm talking to Schweinsteigger about when I took Cassie to her prom, and then An- the lieutenant – she was angry too: something Kavanaugh said – she just starts crying and then I . . . I couldn't help myself, and . . ." Lorne's face puckered up a bit and Radek wondered if he was going to – but no; the major took a deep, shuddery breath and pulled himself together. "It was probably that stupid poem – and I can't even remember past the first line, and it's . . . it's just so . . . so . . ."

Radek cut in before the major broke down again. "Where is the lieutenant, by the way?"

Lorne sniffled again and looked up at him. "She – she got angry again – went off to be alone or something. Not anything I could do, so I thought I would give her some space."

Radek smiled benevolently; those two were adorable together – now if only the military here were more like the one back home . . .

"That reminds me of a poem Rodney was muttering the other day. I think his niece taught it to him. How did it go . . . love is . . . ah, yes. Did you know that his niece is actually-" He stopped as Lorne dropped his spon with a clatter, splattering pudding over himself and the table. "Major, perhaps Dr. Heightmeyer would-"

"What was the poem?"

Radek blinked.

"What was the poem you were talking about? The one Rodney knows?"

Radek stared, gulped, and stared again. Lorne was leaning across the table, his Kleenex waving like a conductor's hands.

"Ermm . . . it was something about love . . . very childish . . . love is . . . love is – oh yes." He smiled. "Love is learning how to walk at someone else's pace; love is understanding when to listen and when to give them space; love is-"

"BECKETT!"

Katie wasn't well.

Anna hadn't meant to go see her. What she had really wanted was some time alone, in peace, and she appreciated Lorne's leaving her be. Not enough to make her day better, perhaps, but it was still nice. She didn't even know what put her in such a bad mood to begin with, she just was. But when Katie had passed her sitting on the bridge and asked her what was wrong, she couldn't seem to stop telling her about everything: how her offworld missions kept going wrong – funny, in hindsight, but wrong nonetheless – how Kavanaugh kept messing with her translation notes, how the smoke from Rodney's lab was affecting her cello strings, how she was falling head over heels for her commanding officer, how – oh right; that's where Katie had stopped her.

It was kind of funny, actually: it had—oops, had to mind Katie's feet with the door. Didn't want her ankles broken, now, did she? Where was she? Oh yeah – it had been years since she had gotten emotional – well, cried, anyway – in front of anyone – and in the space of a couple of months she had broken down in front of Lorne twice, not to mention with him this morning, and now Katie, too. Although today she – for crying out loud – where was Beckett when you needed him? Maybe Ronon could carry someone several inches taller and a good fifteen pounds heavier than him for some ungodly amount of time, but she was not, by any stretch of the imagination, like Ronon, and if she didn't find Dr. Beckett soon she would-

Right. Focus. Stop thinking about that; Bekett would appear soon, or maybe the radios would start up again, and she would find out Katie was fine.

Okay, thinking. So maybe there was something going around: why else would Katie just pass out like that? The botanist had been fine, chipper, even, when they had started talking, gradually getting pale, a bit dizzy, and fainting, suddenly, when Anna finally calmed down. It was the strangest thing ever. Maybe she had pulled a couple all-nighters again? But she didn't have any big projects right now, and why did it come on so suddenly?

Anna shrugged and shifted Katie's weight a bit. She had no idea, and the sooner she found Beckett, the better.

Marcus jumped up at the scream and, Zelenka on his heels, ran for the gateroom where it seemed to emanate. When he got there, Teyla and Doc Parrish were lying on the floor unconscious, Novak and Miko were sitting by the gate crying, Rodney was stomping around in circles, and Beckett and Dr. Weir were slumped next to each other, giggling their hearts out.

Marcus looked around for someone – anyone – that looked reasonably sane. He looked up at the control room and – oh no. Chuck the technician was slumped over his controls. There was something going on here, and he needed to-

"You!"

Marcus swiveled. Zelenka had moved and was approaching Kavanaugh, anger on his face.

"You did this! Your ineptitude! Your unintelligence!"

Kavanaugh stood up, towering over the Czech scientist.

"You did this!"

It was amazing, really. It almost seemed, for one moment, like Radek was flying. Really flying. And then he landed on Kavanaugh.

Just one – make that two – more reasons to get Beckett up and . . . normal.

He was halfway to the doctor when Anna, breathing heavily and with – Dr. Brown? – slung over her shoulders.

Beckett could wait. Marcus hurried over to her and helped her lay Brown on the floor.

She smiled at him, then turned back to Katie. "There is something strange going on around here."

Marcus looked around the room. Weir and Beckett were lying on the floor, completely hysterical, Miko and Novak were still wailing, Kavanaugh and Zelenka were going at it, and Sheppard and Rodney had tottered in together, looking more melancholy than kids who had been grounded on Halloween. "Tell me about it."

Footsteps. Marcus turned his head as Ronon and a couple of the new marines ran into the room.

"There's something wrong with the-" Ronon stopped, took a step forward, and crumpled to the ground next to the marines.

Oh great. Now would be a really good time for Beckett and Rodney to-

Well, speak of the devil. Marcus walked over to Weir and helped her up as she and Beckett stopped laughing. Judging by the lack of weeping, drunken singing, and cursing in Czech the others were calm again as well.

Mckay took one long gape at the people strewn across the room. "What the hell is going on here?"

Marcus shook his head. "I have no idea."


	10. Chapter 10

Crossing the Line

Chapter Ten

"Nanites."

Anna lifted her head and stared at Carson.

"Nanites?"

The Scottish doctor nodded and typed something into his laptop. "I don't know why I didn't see it before, but there it is." He looked across the table at her. "I'm sending you the data right now. Get Raja and work on it - I need to go find Rodney."

Anna tapped on her headset and slumped back down at her computer as Beckett jogged away. All right, so they were nanites; it was, admittedly, a start, but she doubted they would find out how to stop them in time to do anything. Opening the file, she tapped her earpiece again - perfect, now the radios were going wonky too -- and told Raja, the lab technician, to come help. It was too late for petit, anyway; he had died earlier that day. Half of Atlantis was down with it, and that was the strange part: it wasn't the half that everyone would have thought would have been affected. Those with the Ancient gene, whether they had acquired it naturally or artificially, had had some really bad mood swings for a while, but they were fine now; and, judging from the information Raja was sending her, nanite-free. But those without the ancient gene had, on contact with the nanites, fallen unconscious. One day later and they were still comatose -- except that now their hearts and lungs were giving out. Two dead so far, and three that Beckett said wouldn't last the night. So here they were, quarantined on Atlantis, and she had no idea what, precisely, she could do to help. As soon as Beckett had discovered that she had translated the Ancient 'lab reports' they had found on Y2G-411, he had gone downstairs, dragged her to his office and plunked her in front of a computer. The lab reports dealt with some form of nanites, it seemed, and she had consulted with Miko while translating them, and, considering Miko and most of the biologists were lying unconscious in the infirmary, they needed all the help they could get. It also helped that she had had so many of those 'chats' with the scientists; apparently her reading their textbooks paid off - wait until Lorne heard that. Also, from some reports she had helped Daniel with when she was at the SGC, she knew a little - a very rudimentary little - about some of the nanites they had encountered in the Milky Way galaxy.

Hmm, that was interesting. According to these blood reports from Cadman's physical yesterday and the ones done after she attacked Maj. Peters, the nanites had tripled in between the incidents…and then they had tripled again. It was only after she had come in contact with Lt. Alexandrovich that the nanites had disappeared. Well, it had nbeen obvious that people became infected when they walked into a room with another infected person -- but why had the nanites increased like that? From the ones they had encountered before, particularly the ones that had infected Dr. Weir, the nanites did not increase in a uniform manner; in fact, the only time she had seen any that did had been - oh, where was it? She had been studying Earth languages that had changed over time on other planets and used the mission report as a reference . . . it had been the one were General O'neill had-

Argos. That was it; Argos. That's right - the nanites were being controlled by an outside power source. But if there were a power source, then why had the nanites lain dormant before suddenly starting up? And why was there such a big discrepancy in how long some of those with the Ancient gene had been symptomatic? The ones who had started displaying mood swings first had had longer -- but far calmer -- ones, whereas those who had been infected later had had short but incredibly violent ones. It was strange, to say the least. Almost as if there had been a power surge: yeah, a steadily increasing power surge.

But that made no sense whatsoever. The last several planets visited hadn't been inhabited, and if someone had managed to plant a power source in something brought back to Atlantis, it might have been on a delay of sorts for a week or two - but Anna sincerely doubted there would be strange power fluctuations once it did turn on.

Which pointed to someone controlling said power source - if there even was one. But who? They hadn't run into a civilization capable of making pasteurized milk in months, for crying out loud. The last time they had, actually, had been on M3X-479, and that had been -- what? More than nine months ago all ready? So if someone was controlling it, how were they doing it? Maybe they had to get close to Atlantis for it to work? It didn't take a lot to power nanites, but getting even a weak signal to Atlantis would take a long time . . . Couldn't be from a ship; Rodney or Zelenka would have picked it up and -- unless it was cloaked? No, no, that couldn't be; they had just been testing some new equipment they had designed for just that purpose. . . So what could it be? Who could it be? The fact that it was attacking everyone but those with the ancient gene pointed to the Ancients themselves having created it, but the Ancients were long gone, and who would want to attack the Atlanteans when the - the Genii, maybe? No, Radon Ladim might be. . . Well, Radon, but he wasn't going to start murdering half the Atlanteans. He might be many things, but he certainly wasn't stupid.

But who else could have the access to-- Anna swiveled as Raja walked in.

"Hello - Dr. Beckett told me to come when I finished sending you the information." The technician walked to one of the computers and sat down. "He managed to stabilize Dr. Zelda - you know, the astronomer? But he doesn't know how long he can last without-"

Anna pushed back her chair and stood up. But of course! Why hadn't she seen it? Walking over, she hugged Raja and gave her a kiss on the cheek, then ran out the door.

Marcus was helping Rodney and Zelenka go over data of the last several hundred gate transmissions; they were looking for energy spikes, anomalous readings -- anything, really, that might give them a clue as to where this had come from. Dr. Weir and Col. Sheppard were going over mission reports; she and Laura had both offered to help look through medical reports to see if there was any evidence of mood swings on post-mission checkups, but Beckett had found out she was translating some Ancient biology lab reports they had found, so of course he had set her to work with him, looking for a reason why it attacked those without the ancient gene.

The bad thing about it was that the civilians were those hit hardest. The military personnel were some of the best she had ever met - the thing was that the ones who outdid themselves were sent to the SGC or to Atlantis; in this case, having the ancient gene often determined which of the two places they were sent to.

Civilian personnel, however, were chosen for their intelligence and the fields they worked in. Ending up at the SGC versus Atlantis wasn't, for them, a matter of the gene, it was a matter of where their particular specialties were better suited. For this reason, while about seventy percent of the military personnel had the gene, only thirty percent of the civilians did. It hadn't really seemed like a problem before . . . Until, of course, most of the scientists, doctors and nurses were lying unconscious in the infirmary.

So now anyone who knew the least bit about medicine, biology, or nanites was working with Beckett and Rodney, and everyone else was in the mess working with Sheppard and Caldwell. He stifled a yawn and grabbed the cup sitting next to him. Hmm, empty again. Was that -- lipstick? Oopsie, wrong cup. Well, his was empty too, so it was of little--

"Rodney!"

Ah, the lieutenant. Well, this looked promising. Maybe she--

"I found it! I found the power source!"

Marcus looked around as the 'tenant shoved her way up to them; all right, so he wasn't the only one that was confused. That was always a good sign. Then again, if Rodney was lost, it might not--

His thoughts stopped again as Anna, hopping up and down in some strange sort of victory dance, grabbed his sleeve and started tugging on it and chattering like a hyperactive squirrel.

"All right, so I knew the power source couldn't be on Atlantis because of the fluctuations, and it couldn't be on a spaceship because Radek would have caught it, so when Raja told me the bit about Dr. Zelda it hit me -- it's not being operated by anyone, it's just sitting on another planet!"

Marcus heard Zelenka cough beside him. Maybe he should say something? Calmly he placed his hand on the one still tugging at his sleeve and looked down at her.

"Power source?"

She frowned and cocked her head. "Well, the nanites are being powered by an outside source. . . I think." She blinked. "Didn't I -- didn't I mention that?"

Marcus sighed, pulled up a chair for her, and tapped his earpiece. "Dr. Weir, Col. Sheppard, I think you should come down to the mess; there's something you're going to want to hear."

"So it's not being controlled by anybody?"

Marcus walked over to Cadman and helped her struggle in to her vest; she and Major Peters had banged each other up pretty badly earlier. She had said she was fine, but Beckett hadn't had a chance to examine her and, to be quite honest, he just couldn't bring himself to trust anyone when there was an injury involved. But-- she had asked about the power source. Right.

"No, it's not. Schweinsteigger figured out that one of our teams probably picked it up accidentally. See, the power source was on a planet we visited some time ago. Since the source was nearby when that team was infected, and the closer you are the shorter the symptomatic period is, they probably didn't show any symptoms at all -- so, of course, they all probably have the ancient gene. However, when they came back through the gate, the distance between the two planets prohibited the nanites from getting any power, and they were dormant for months. But apparently the other planet's orbit brings it close to Atlantis every four months, and yesterday it got close enough that the power source reactivated the nanites, or so I understand from Rodney." He stepped back and walked into the hallway. "Last I heard they had it narrowed to two planets, and--" he paused as Sheppard's voice filtered into his ear. "Come on -- they think they've found it."


	11. Chapter 11

Crossing the Line

Chapter Eleven

Rodney was inconsolable. He was sitting by Katie's bed, holding her hand, patting her hair; he had already said goodbye to Teyla and Ronon, cheerfully assuring them that they would be fine and he would be back soon with Sheppard - even though they were unconscious -- but now, with Katie, he seemed to be at an uncharacteristic loss for words.

Anna pushed back her chair from Lindsay Novak's bed to go to him, but paused as Sheppard, geared up and holding a P90, walked up to Rodney and, putting his hand on the scientist's shoulder, bent over and whispered something in his ear. Anna smiled and patted Lindsay's hand again. It was god that Rodney had Sheppard and his team to look out for him -- and it was good that he had someone to look out for.

It would have been nice if she had-- but no, that didn't matter right now. Anna reached down to pat Lindsay's forehead but froze when someone gripped her shoulder.

"Five minutes to leave, 'tenant." Lorne's voice was hoarse; he had probably been instructing the newest recruits in what, exactly, this mission's goals were. Generally that went well, but, if he was particularly impatient about something -- say, saving half the population of Atlantis -- his instruction methods involved more. . .well, not yelling, exactly, but loud speaking. Very loud speaking.

His hand tightened ever-so-slightly on her shoulder, and she swallowed hard past a sudden lump in her throat. She had no illusions as to the safety of this mission, and she wasn't going to delude herself into thinking that everyone was going to survive.

"You okay, 'tenant?"

Anna rested her forehead on her hand and nodded hurriedly. What was wrong with her? She was not going to start crying like a little girl. Things were going to be fine. Lorne was going to be fine. And after the mission, they would-

"What's wrong?" The major knelt beside her, took her hand away from her face, rubbed his thumb soothingly across her palm. "Not-"

"No," Anna laughed. "Not nanites, just - nerves, I guess." She dropped her other hand, put it on his; the worry in his eyes almost made her break down altogether. "I'm just scared I'll lose -- lose my friends." His hand was rough under hers. "You know after Rebecca I didn't really have anyone so close, and then I came here and then there were Katie and Radek and the team and. . ."

"And me." Lorne smiled at her and, almost unconsciously, started playing with her fingers. "You know, Lieu-" he paused. "Anna - if I were to-"

"Teams one and two, report to the gate room; our mission is a go."

Anna and Lorne took their hands off their earpieces at the same time. He scowled at her, and she had the feeling she was mirroring his expression. Normally she liked Sheppard, but right now she could quite happily-

"Tear him into a million pieces," Lorne muttered under his breath. He caught her eye. "We'll continue this conversation later, shall we, lieutenant?"

She nodded, reached down and grabbed the P90 lying by her chair. Patting Novak's forehead one more time, she stood up and jogged to catch up with Lorne. The time to settle this would come or it would not; for now she had to put it out of her mind the best she could and hope they both made it through the next six hours alive.

Being a CO might have its perks, but one of them was definitely not trudging with Sheppard at the front, breaking a path through the muddy brush land. It was tedious, boring, and every five minutes Sheppard would pause, turn around, and-

"Radek - how much time until the eclipse?"

-ask how much time they had left.

Had he mentioned it was tedious?

Foot after foot after foot of dense brush sunk deep into the mud stuck out to trip you; mosquito-like bugs attacked from every direction; and, which the lieutenant must particularly be enjoying, long, furry millipedes that crawled across the brush and leaped up your leg.

Then you had the natives - they called themselves the Muoran - who had been in a state of civil war the first time Sheppard and Rodney had visited. Of course, their weapons couldn't compare to the Atlanteans' -- until a rogue group of Genii had come to the planet with a stash of weapons they had stolen from Radim. Their bodies were found by the gate -- Beckett couldn't determine from what they had died -- but their weapons were suspiciously missing. They could only assume that the Genii had shown some of the Muoran how to use the weapons before fiddling around with the power source, turning it on, and subsequently dying. So the Muoran were still at war, but now both sides had guns, the better to kill each other with, and outsiders, as Sheppard had been told on his last visit, were no longer welcome.

Normally they would have had no problem staying away, but now it was quite literally a matter of life and death, and they had no time for any of Dr. Weir's peace delegations. They had less than six hours until the planet reached its point closest to Atlantis and eclipsed or something. It was then, Rodney and Radek surmised -- surmised? He had been spending too much time around Schweinsteigger -- that everyone affected on Atlantis would die, although more would probably go the closer it got. So every minute did count, now. He only hoped they could find the thing and turn it off fast enough.

Well, Sheppard was moving more slowly now, more cautiously, his P90 held at the ready. They must be getting close. Marcus stopped as Sheppard held up his fist. He heard the shuffling noises behind him, abruptly, fall silent. Good.

Noises to the right. Scurrying. Too big for a squirrel. Human? Maybe, but not likely. But still. Best not risk it; just in case.

Silence.

Marcus looked back and counted heads. Cadman, Riley, Danny, Rodney, Radek, Peters, Twellum, Gaitan and - ah yes, behind Riley - the lieutenant.

Good.

Well, so far, anyway. Now if only that would hold. . . And if only they it would hold enough for them to hurry up and get this done without anyone getting hurt . . . particularly the lieutenant. And if only no one back on Atlantis would-

"Radek - how much time've we got left?"

Two miles down, one left to go. Rodney said the only things not native to the planet had been some plants near a series of caves; made sense that the power source would be in one of them - the caves, not the plants. If only they could go faster. But no, they had to be quiet. Marcus stopped as Sheppard put his fist up again. Someone bumped into him from behind and snagged a sleeve on his pack.

Scuffling noises off in the distance. Bumping. Scraping. They faded, slowly.

It was several minutes before Sheppard took a deep breath and relaxed his grip on the P90.

"Quietly," he said as he stepped forward.

Whoever was holding onto his pack suddenly spasmed, and Marcus turned. Of course: Schweinsteigger was shaking a millipede off her pants. Marcus sighed and, bending down, swiped it off her thigh. She looked up at him with a smile, but her eyes widened as they focused on something behind him.

He felt rather than saw her swivel, bring up her gun, fling him to the ground, and shoot as several bullets ripped into a branch his head had been in front of moments earlier.

It was all over in a matter of seconds. Most of the team had perked up at the lieutenant's yell; Sheppard even got off a few shots. Before he knew it there were yells of 'clear' coming from his teammates and Schweinsteigger was reaching down her hand to help him up. Marcus took it and stood, wiping the mud off his BDUs.

"You all right?"

He smiled at her. "Yeah - thanks to you."

"I owed you." She grinned. "Or had you forgotten?"

He had just opened his mouth to retort when Sheppard came up to them.

"Y'all right?" he asked, his eyes darting between them.

Marcus nodded, and Sheppard turned his attention to Anna.

"Nice shooting there, lieutenant."

Anna grinned. "Thank you, sir." She paused and looked towards the brush where the shooters had been hidden. "Was there just the one, sir?"

"Yeah." Sheppard nodded and, as Anna walked off, turned to look at him. "Major, as soon as the area is clear we're going to make a run for it to the caves."

Marcus nodded and turned, but Sheppard put a hand on his shoulder. Marcus looked back at him.

"Sir?"

Sheppard glanced around to make sure no one was nearby. "Rodney scanned the forest - there are life signs nearby, concentrated half a mile east - right near the caves. We won't stand a chance of just getting there, not to mention making it out, even if we make a run for it."

He stopped; Marcus said nothing, just let him mull things over. Sheppard was clearly trying to think of another way out - anyone could see that. What was it that he-

"We don't stand a chance - unless someone distracts them. The thing is, whoever does it - they probably won't come back." He paused. "Major, I know the route to the caves and back; I can get Radek there even if Rodney is shot. However, I'm not going to order you to do anything. I know you've done missions like this before, but if you don't think you-"

"There's a USB drive on my desk with several word documents saved on them. If - well, I would appreciate it if you printed them out if you get back. There are envelopes in my desk drawer - they're already addressed."

"I'll take care of it myself." Sheppard clapped him on the back. "Major Lorne, it's been an honor."

"Likewise, sir." Lorne nodded and walked back to his pack. He stopped and looked back. Anna was back now, talking with Sheppard; the one regret of his life. If only - but no. He had better get going, now. No sense wasting time. He stooped to pick up his gear. Now if he could just get away quietly - yeah, right now when they were all distracted by Rodney. . . He edged away slowly, walking into the trees.

Well then. Half a mile east it was. Agh, he hated brush. Now there was one thing he wouldn't miss. And those centipedes. Those trees were good, though. He could use them for cover - hide behind one, shoot who he could. With luck he could find a pocket to hit and get the rest to chase him. With enough ammo and a little bit of luck he could hold them off long enough for Rodney to fix the doohickey. More than that was up to whatever luck kept coming to the rescue of Team Sheppard. Righto then, there should be a bit more to go before he hit the first pack of Muoran; now if he could just-

"You know, your one-man distraction might help, but it would prove so more effective if you had, say, a sniper to help you out."

No. No, no no no no. Marcus stopped, forced himself to breath deeply, and turned around. Anna stood, facing him, her P90 in one hand, the rifle she had insisted on bringing along strapped to her back.

"Fortunately the colonel agreed with me." She smiled and took a few steps towards him. "Lucky I saw you walking off after you forgot to tell me you were leaving."

"No."

She stopped.

"You're not coming with me - it's too dangerous; it's practically a suicide mission, for crying out loud, and you know it. Anyone who goes out there isn't coming back, and there is no way in hell I am bringing you with me." He knew she wasn't listening to him, not really, but he said it anyway. He didn't care if he had to tie her up and- and what, then? He couldn't take her back to Sheppard; she would have to go herself, and he knew she wasn't going to do that. He couldn't take her back to the gate - he could order her to go, but he knew she would disregard it. Tying her up and leaving her behind would do nothing more than assure her death when she was found - by the Muoran or by a wild animal; no, he had to convince her - if not, then all that would happen was that she would die. Damnit, why hadn't he convinced Sheppard she shouldn't come on the mission? As soon as they realized what planet this was, that they could only take at most two teams, he should have said something. Going in with this few people on a planet where pretty much everyone was your enemy - it was insane. Everybody coming knew it would probably be their last mission. He would have said something, but. . . There was always that hope, going out on a mission with your team. It was as if, at least on Atlantis, if you went out with your team your chances of living through it skyrocketed. If there were someone to back you up, someone who cared about you, there was the chance, the spark of hope that you could make it through this impossible situation alive. And coming with Sheppard? The man had a saint's luck; after that business with the Aurora and the wraith cruiser - the man had come back from the dead, almost - the common gossip had become that Sheppard and his team were indestructible. But even indestructible couldn't save you on a mission like this; there was luck, yeah, and then there were miracles - and miracles didn't happen all that often, even for Sheppard.

"No offense, major, but this entire mission -- you did notice we weren't meant to come back? A planetful of them versus - what - a dozen of us? We're probably all going to die anyway, and when all is said and done I'd rather do it with you than with anybody else on this planet."

Marcus smiled, crookedly. He walked over, let his P90 dangle by its strap, and, putting his chin on tope of her head, wrapped his arms around her. She was right. Either way, whether she went with him or Sheppard, they only had an hour or less to live; what better way to spend it than with her?

It was a minute or two before he let her go; she pulled back, her eyes shining. She sniffled suspiciously as she fumbled with her weapons strap. He reached forward, untangled it for her. She looked up at him; he stretched out his hand, brushed her hair out of her face, cupped her chin.

"Well then," she said, as the moment stretched on, "we'd better get going - else we won't be much good for the home team, will we?"

She turned and started walking off; he followed her, but stopped and tapped her on the shoulder.

"Lieutenant - Anna - before we go, I just want you to know that I- you're-"

Anna patted his hand. "I know." She smiled. "Like I said - I'd rather be here with you than with anybody else."

Marcus grinned; he felt, cliché as it might seem, as though a burden had been lifted from his shoulders. He was going to spend the rest of his life with her, short as it might be, and he couldn't think of any other way he would rather have it.

Anna had borrowed one of Rodney's life-sign scanners when she was speaking to Sheppard. Good thing, too, or they would have been virtually blind. Smart girl, that one.

Right now, by his estimates, they were one mile east of the caves; they had spotted a group of six Muoran sitting around a campfire, crawled up near them and hidden behind some brush. Too bad they couldn't afford to wait; there was a group of five more heading their way, and it would be so much more effective if they could hit all eleven of them at once. But no, Sheppard's group was getting pretty close to the caves, so it had to be now or never.

Looking down at Anna, he tapped her on the shoulder and gestured up at a tree nearby. She got his drift immediately, as he knew she would; she was nothing if not intelligent. She reached up, stretched, and could barely brush her fingers against the lowest branch. He couldn't stifle a slight snicker as he bent down, cupped his hands, and busted her up into the tree. She glared at him, but he could tell she didn't mind. Hey, they only had a couple of hours at the most to live; if he couldn't tease her about her height now, well. . .

All thoughts of teasing her flew out of his mind as she set herself up, sprawled uncomfortably in the tree, her body tense, her finger held centimeters away from the trigger, the scope up to her eye. She did have shortcomings as an airman - not the least of which were her temper and her problems in hand-to-hand with larger oponents, and her geeking out was enough to drive him insane sometimes (although it was really cute until she got to the 'insane' point), but give her a rifle and a target and the result was a thing of beauty. The way she held the rifle, the way she tensed her shoulders so it's butt sat against them just so, the way she bit her lip in anticipation - the way she hit the target, every single time: it was enough to make a pacifist join the air force, just to be near her when she practiced at the firing range.

He looked through his binoculars at the men as she lined up her target. They had both been adamant about only firing warning shots - now what was she-

He flinched as a shot rang out; in the camp, a man who was raising a mug to his lips blinked, then yelled, as it broke apart in his hands. A couple of seconds later, a clay jug sitting by one of the tents exploded; directly after that, the pot hanging over the fire just dropped: whatever was in it spilled everywhere, dousing the fire and splashing on the men.

He grinned at that one but didn't himself linger, instead stepping back to the tree to help her down. She slid off, grabbed his hand, stepped onto his shoulder and jumped down.

As soon as she got her balance he grabbed his P90 and started running. She followed; neither of them took particular care to be quiet - that was the whole point of the thing after all, wasn't it? He could hear the Muoran following; he could see it on the life-sign scanner - there were about a dozen of them, now. He could only hope they were using the Genii's radios - if they just - okay, there it was. Two - no, three - of them were breaking off from the main group in Sheppard's way. Good, for a start. Now if he could just figure out a way to get the rest of them to- uh-oh.

The footsteps behind him were fading. Not good - they were losing them. Quick - had had to do something, think of something, bring them back, make them chase him. He dug his fingers through his pack, finding nothing until his eyes settled on Anna's vest. Quickly he snatched the grenade off it; she moved to cover him reflexively. Marcus dodged behind a tree, yanked the pin off, and threw it as far east as he could.

The explosion had the desired result: all but two of the little dots onscreen blipped their way towards the noise. Marcus waited, Anna hovering over his shoulder, until Sheppard's team reached the caves before moving. Distract - check. Now he just had to figure out a way to keep them occupied long enough for Rodney and Radek to shut the thing off.

Things like this, he mused as he and Anna set off at a quick jog, were far easier said than done.

It wasn't -- ooh, close one -- perhaps -- ouch -- the smartest -- Hey! That son of a -

"'Tenant!"

Ah good, she ducked in-

-time.

Had to get up. Had to get up.

Ouch.

What was it with these people and kicking you when you were down? Honestly, they were-

Ha! Well, she wouldn't be kicking anyone for a while now, would she? Served her right.

Now, who was next?

Hmm, there didn't seem to be anyone arou-

Marcus grunted as someone tackled him from behind. Not fair. He grabbed onto the brush in front of him and grabbed himself forward, kicking whoever was grabbing onto/punching him. This was rewarded by a sickening crunching sound; Marcus took that as a good sign, especially considering it didn't come from him. Hmm. He pulled himself up and surveyed his handiwork: broken nose - perfect - the guy probably had a concussion too; he'd be out for a while.

Looking around at the brush, at the bodies lying there, he reminded himself to thank Ronan on the off chance he ever saw the Satedan again. The people here were all about Ronan's size, and strong. Without Ronan's training, he and Anna never would have made it past the five-minute mark. As it was, though, they had taken out eight - count 'em, eight! - Muoran after their ammo had run out. Anna had gone insane, really, doing things he never thought she could have. Maybe she couldn't have taken down Ronan - all right, or even Teyla - but she would have given Sheppard - and, to tell the truth, himself - a run for his money. Speaking of Anna, where was she, anyway? She'd been fighting one of the Muoran and run off that way - back into the woods. He should go and-

"Nicely done, sir, if you don't mind my saying."

Right on time. She looked all right, barring a black eye and some cuts on her arm. Then again, if how he felt was any indication, those few cuts and bruises were probably hiding a cracked rib or two - and a whole lot of aches. But now, he mused, was probably not a good time to broach the subject. Not that it mattered, anyway, not really.

He leaned back against a tree stump and looked at her. She was staring down at the life-sign scanner - you know, if he ever saw Rodney again, in this life or the next, he had to remember to ask if those things had an actual name; whatever it was, Anna was fiddling with it and looking worried. That couldn't be good.

"Two groups moving towards the caves. She looked up and sighed. "Sheppard and the team are still inside."

Definitely not good. "How long've we got?"

She clicked a few buttons and muttered something, ostensibly converting miles into minutes.

"Twenty-one, give or take two." She tapped her foot impatiently. "Either way, it would be best to-"

"-hit them when they're at least five minutes away from the cave to avoid drawing them to it, I know." Marcus took a closer look at her, pulled his pack in front of him and rummaged through it as he spoke, looking for some bandages. "Here, give me your arm."

"But you'll-"

"-be able to think better when I know you're not going to pass out from blood loss? I know that too." He waited for a second. "Arm. Now."

Her eyes glinted, and he knew that if he weren't her CO he would have been on the receiving end of her anger. As it was, however, she contented herself with biting her lip and holding out her arm; the cuts -- gashes, rather -- were deeper than he would have thought.

"They have knives, apparently, she said in explanation at his raised eyebrow. "Fortunately, they don't seem to be able to use them very well."

Marcus snorted. He sincerely doubted that was all there was to the story, but further examination of the lieutenant -- of the lieutenant's injuries, to be more precise (unfortuna - never mind.) - would have to wait until later. Well, if there was a later. Which, considering she and he were about to, all ready weakened, run a mile and a half and attack ten or eleven alert, decently-trained soldiers while carrying only whatever guns and ammo they could scrounge from the ones they had, well-supplied and with surprise on their side, barely managed to take down, was - well, not to be a pessimist here, but it was highly unlikely; of course, he had known before leaving Atlantis that he probably wouldn't go back, but coming this far without quite kicking it had given him a bit of hope. . .

But either way, they should probably be leaving. Carefully he finished tying up the bandages, tucking a corner in to hold it and patting Anna's arm absentmindedly.

"Right then," he muttered as he scrunched down among the unconscious Muoran to look for weapons. "We'll hit them at the place by the caves - the one with the tree. They should pass by there; we'll make it before they do, take some of them out with - I think I've still got my stunner in my pack, you? Good, then jump them, I suppose. It should be close enough to alert the team, but not close enough that they'll get suspicious of the caves."

Anna nodded and Marcus turned back to one of the weapons he'd grabbed; well, he thought as he loaded it, perhaps they would be dead in a half hour, but there was no way on earth they weren't going to go quietly.

It had started raining while they were running. Not too hard, really, just enough to get you decently soaked. It was perfect porch weather. He could just see it: him, Anna, some nice cups of cocoa, one of those swinging bench things, just sitting there and listening to the rain come down - that would be perfect. Lying in an uncomfortable tree with many weapons waiting for the people who were probably going to kill you? It would do in a pinch.

He looked at the life-scanner: about a minute left before showtime. Twisting his head, he put his hand on Anna's back and grinned at her.

"It's been an honor serving with you, lieutenant."

She grinned back, blinked as the rain got in her eyes.

"Likewise, sir." She turned back to the watch and sighed. "I wish I could have taken you to a football match - real football, that is. Never meant to be, I guess."

He snickered. "What was the score on our football debates, then? Me, zero, you - what? Eighteen? Nineteen?" He breathed in; the smell of rain reminded him of home. "I would have liked to have taken you to meet my parents; I think they would've liked you. Oh, and my sister - she would have gone crazy over you, if I'm not much mistaken."

She laughed quietly, the sound muffled by the rain. "Well, on the bright side, you'll--"

She stopped. Softly swearing and cutting at the brush in front of him with a long knife, a Muoran soldier walked into the clearing. He paused, scanned the area carefully, then turned and gestured with his hand. As the rest of the group walked into view, Marcus readied his stunner, took careful aim, and fired.

They stunned a good half of the Muoran before they were spotted. Fortunately by that time there were a couple standing too close to the tree, and as soon as the Muoran opened fire Marcus grabbed his weapons and flung himself on top of them.

It was not, perhaps, the most complex and intelligent battle tactic he had ever used, but it was effective, to an extent. Because now, although he had to use a tree as a shield, which wouldn't work for long, not only he had knocked out another one them and was currently overpowering another, he had given the lieutenant - given Anna - plenty of time to slide down the other side of the tree, creep around the brushes, and fire at them from a different angle.

It was too simple. Too silly. Too reliant on his hand-to-hand techniques and her sniping abilities. In short, it was doomed from the start and wouldn't hold a chance for long. But that was the beauty of the thing: it didn't have to work; it was never meant to work. All it needed to do was make enough noise for Sheppard to take notice of, and that had been done by the Muoran themselves once the first guy was stunned.

Of course, once he flung himself out of the tree he didn't really have time to think of that.

There were only four of them left, now. It was amazing, incredible, completely unbelievable - but there it was. Only four of them, and now Schweinsteigger was fighting hand-to-hand too, and it was raining harder but there was -

-make that three of them.

Apparently only two or three of the whole group had been carrying Genii weapons; the rest were either unarmed or carrying knives.

Not to say that knives couldn't be used effectively - the cuts on his shoulder and forearm certainly attested to their effectiveness. Just that Ronon, bless him, had been particularly emphatic about teaching how to fight, unarmed, against a man with knives.

So now there were two against him and one fighting Anna; one of the ones on him slunk away - strange, but hey - and, while the other guy was watching his buddy desert him, Marcus decked him with a hard right hook.

So now all that was left was to go help Anna and maybe, just maybe, they might see the night out and-

The man she was fighting got one arm loose from her hold, grabbed his weapon and slammed it across her head. She fell, heavily, to the ground, and the soldier aimed his weapon at her head and-

-he never had a chance; the bullet hit him quite cleanly - he probably never felt a thing. Marcus dropped the gun he'd grabbed and ran over to her. Looked like she had a stab wound on her shoulder, too, and he couldn't tell what her head wound was like, not in this light. He leant over and felt her neck; good, she still had a pulse. Quickly he stood and picked her up. He started walking away from the clearing, towards the cave, towards Radek, who had helped out in the army hospitals in his stint in the then-Czechoslovakian army; he was no Beckett, mind you, but he could do something at least.

There was something nagging at him, something - ah, yes, he was leaving himself open for attack from behind. But there wasn't anyone left to attack him - well, except-

Marcus jerked to a stop as he heard the crackle of gunfire. Still holding her he fell to his knees, three sharp stabs of pain blossoming in his stomach and shoulder.

No one left except the guy that had run away.

Anna dropped to the ground. Why weren't his arms working? They-

He fell partly on top of her. His head was pillowed on her stomach; he could feel her breathing slowly, ever so slowly. Where had the soldier run off to now? Probably run away again, though anyone worth his salt would have finished him and Anna off before scurrying off. Not that he was complaining.

He lay there quietly, staring at the stars, raindrops dripping into his eyes. Good; Anna was still unconscious. Had she been hit in the side she might have woken, might have suffered, but fortunately his body had stopped the bullets. For her, at least, death would be painless, a mere matter of bleeding out quietly. At least he had been able to do that much for her.

They said your life was supposed to flash before your eyes right before you died. Funny, all he saw was Schweinsteigger, her eyes glinting, curled up on a sofa in her duck-print pajamas, laughing at some joke he had made. She had looked a mess that night, when, suffering from insomnia they had both ended up watching Monty Python, a complete and utter disheveled, caffeine-addicted, sleep-deprived mess, and he knew he had never loved anyone as much as he did her. He never had and he never would again.

He would have liked to live some more years, yeah. But this, going knowing you'd accomplished something, going with the person you loved most in the world - galaxy - in your mind, lying next to you, going like this, he thought as his breath started to come less easily and the image of Anna in his mind started fading to black, well, it was a good way to die.


	12. Chapter 12

A.N. Wow. The last chapter. I can't believe I've actually finished something. Thank you, everyone who reviewed and read; you're awesome, and I hope you've enjoyed the story as much as I have.

Crossing the Line

Chapter Twelve

This had not been a good day for Steven Caldwell. Any day that started with him being infected by malevolent nanites was not, in his mind, a good day; then, while everyone else had been figuring out the virus, he had been called away to rescue a team that had been stranded and pinned down by some wraith. It was several hours there and back, and by the time he docked on Atlantis they had figured out the planet and sent Sheppard and some others to try and sort things out. He had just sat down in Elizabeth's office when Beckett came running in: the patients' condition had stopped deteriorating, and one of the ones infected latest had regained consciousness. Caldwell was off before he stopped speaking, sprinting towards the Daedalus and barking orders into his mouthpiece.

It was a short trip to the planet - only lasted about four minutes before the Daedalus jumped into orbit. Steven looked at his helmsman as they drifted above the planet.

"Picking up Sheppard and nine other transmitters to the south of us. . .and Major Lorne and another about a mile east of those."

"Take us over them, Sergeant." Steven thought for a moment and tapped his earpiece. "Dr. Beckett to the bridge - we're picking up the team."

"We're right over Sheppard's nine, sir. Life signs are strong." The sergeant smiled at him and Beckett, who was leaning on his chair.

Steven sighed in relief. "Beam them up."

With a white flash of light Sheppard and the others appeared on the bridge: they were all in defensive positions and had their guns out, though fortunately they weren't firing, and a few of them seemed to have some minor injuries - Radek's left arm was in a sling, Peters and Riley both had cuts on their foreheads, and Rodney and Sheppard were sporting slight burns and bruises on their arms.

Beckett ran over and started fussing over Radek's arm while Sheppard stood up and wobbled his way over to his CO.

"Right on time, sir. Lorne and Schweinsteigger?"

Steven quirked his lips in a smile. "We should be beaming them up right now - sergeant?"

The helmsman tapped something into his computer and spoke without lifting his eyes from the screen. "Their transmitters are on but their life-signs - I can't find them to-" he moved aside as Rodney came up behind him and, wincing from the blisters on his hands, typed something.

"I can't see the - oh, there they are. Their life signs are weak, though; maybe there's some interference from the caves? I can't-" He typed some more and made a 'hmm'ing noise. "Beaming them up - now."

Steven sucked in his breath as they appeared, and all else fell silent on the bridge.

* * *

Carson Beckett was used to having badly injured people brought to him without a moment's notice. With Sheppard's team on Atlantis, you had to get used to it - either that or go insane. It was amazing working here - encountering medical problems no one had ever seen, saving dozens of lives that would otherwise have been lost; it was the chance of a lifetime, and he was grateful to have had the opportunity to come here. But sometimes it was just as difficult as it was wonderful. Sometimes you couldn't save everyone; sometimes they caught you unawares, came in the midst of celebration - the stupid, often senseless deaths of men and women who should have had decades longer to live.

It was like this, now; he had been so relieved to see Sheppard and the others alive, without any serious injuries. Having to look at Radek's broken arm was a pleasure, considering he wasn't doing Radek's autopsy. He had been euphoric, almost -- and then Rodney had beamed the others on board.

He froze, completely, for a second, forgetting he was a doctor, forgetting he should go to them, just stood there staring at them, the euphoria draining out of him rapidly.

The lieutenant was sprawled on her back, her left arm twisted strangely at the shoulder blade, her hair and right shoulder covered in blood. Major Lorne lay, spread-eagled, perpendicular to her, his head and shoulders resting on her stomach. His BDUs, had been forest green when he started out; now his shirt was colored a dull red with blood that, mixing with the rain, was leaving a puddle on the floor of the bridge.

It took Carson a second or two to process it, and he froze - but only for a second. Then his brain started working again and he was at their side, putting his fingers to the major's throat and feeling for a pulse, moving to the lieutenant and doing the same. He looked up at Sheppard and Rodney.

"They're alive - barely." He grabbed a knife tucked into the colonel's boot and started cutting of the major's shirt while as he talked into his mouthpiece and at the ones standing around him. "I need them moved to the infirmary - we need to jump to Atlantis, now; can't move him much - I'll operate on board. I'll need an anesthesiologist and two nurses to assist." Carson looked up; everyone still seemed frozen in place. "Do you want them to die? I said move, now!"

* * *

Rodney grabbed her feet, so Danny Bergher was left picking her up by the shoulders. He sucked in his breath as his hands brushed against her face. She was cold, so cold. He walked backwards, following Sheppard and Beckett's voices as they carried Lorne, on a stretcher, to the infirmary. The ship jolted as they jumped into hyper drive; they should dock at Atlantis in a few minutes. There would be another doctor there, one of Beckett's subordinates who wasn't harmed by the nanites - she could come on board and work on Anna-Patricia while Beckett dealt with Lorne. He only hoped it would be enough. Lorne might be a bit worse, sure - but Anna-Patricia wasn't looking all that great; she could easily die, he knew it, and he wished there was something -- anything -- he could do to save her.

They had grown close during her time here. He was the only civilian on a gun-obsessed team, and she, although an airman, acted enough like a civilian that they could share common interests, chatter about the significance of this find or that. Not to mention that her knowledge of linguistics came quite handy when he was in anthropologist mode. She was sort of like a younger sister to him, and he had been so happy to see that she and the major were falling for each other. They made such a good team, she and the major did, whether it was on the field or in the kitchen. It was just nice to see something like that happen on Atlantis, a relationship like that rather than just another one strained from stress or broken by death.

But now. . .he sighed as he and Rodney set her down on a bed in the infirmary. Now, he thought as one of the nurses shut the curtains around her and shunted him away, now things weren't quite so simple anymore.

* * *

Rodney sat next to Katie on the couch in her quarters, her head on his knee. It was so good to have her back. Carson said it would take a few more days for her to recover her usual strength, but for the most part -- barring a propensity for taking catnaps such as this one -- she seemed about back to normal, even insisting on working in the lab today. He grinned; amazing how she could recover in so short a time. If only the others had been so lucky; nine dead from the nanites, and now Marcus Lorne was lying in a coma in the infirmary. By all rights he should be dead - and the lieutenant with him, but that didn't make it any easier, did it? If only they could-

Hmmm, knocking. Who could it be at this hour? Maybe one of Katie's lab assistant's? Yes, they had probably finished running the simulations on that plant-growth program he had designed for her - with any luck, the plants would-

"Lieutenant?" Rodney froze as the door opened to reveal a disheveled, exhausted-looking, but still recognizable Anna-Patricia Schweinsteigger.

"I'm sorry - I thought Katie was alone. I'll just-"

Rodney put out a hand to steady her as she wobbled, dizzily, against the doorframe. She looked terrible; Beckett wouldn't have let her leave the infirmary like this. Well, the least he could do was bring her in and give her a cup of tea. Not like he was doing anything at the moment. Well, unless you counted watching Katie sleep.

He waited until she was seated comfortably at the table before saying anything. She looked. . .sad.

"Should you be out of the infirmary?" Oh, smart one Rodney. Maybe next time he could just take-

"Major Lorne's worse." She stared at the table, her finger tracing figure eights on it slowly. "He flatlined several minutes ago. Beckett brought him back, but he said there wasn't anything else he could do. . .just wait and see." She looked up at him blankly. "I love him, you know."

Rodney reached out and, for lack of other comfort, silently patted her hand.

* * *

Beeping.

Low, rhythmic, insistent beeping; it was actually kind of soothing.

Dead? Didn't feel like it. . . . Probably - ah, yeah, antiseptics. Infirmary? Wow.

Nice temperature. 75, maybe. Normally he would have preferred it cooler, but this felt just right.

A smooth cloth covering him -- light, comfortable. Good bed sheet.

And there was something heavy lying on his chest, something comfortably heavy lying on his chest.

Marcus cracked open his eyes tentatively.

Hmm, that was interesting.

Schweinsteigger was slumped in a chair next to his bed. Her head, heavily bandaged and with - hmm, those were small - stitches spreading back from her forehead to beyond her ear on the right side, lay on his chest. She was, though seemingly asleep, cupping his right hand with her left. Her right arm -- like his left -- was held up in a sling; her right shoulder looked bulky under her t-shirt: probably bandages.

These pillows were uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable. Maybe if he just shifted his-

Oh, that was painful. You know, maybe the pillows weren't quite that uncomfortable. Nope, not that uncomfortable at all. In fact, he rather liked them this-

"Major?"

Oh no, he'd woken her up -- and she looked like she hadn't slept in days.

"Major?" She dropped his hand, pressed a button on the side of his bed, and, her eyes glistening, ran a hand over his forehead, through his head. "Marcus?"

He smiled at her. God, he was tired. Maybe he could go back to sleep now. After all, he'd already said hello. Hadn't he? Maybe he'd forgotten to. . .

Wait, had she called him Marcus? So she really did-

* * *

"After you finally woke up Beckett decided to do a minor surgery - he didn't get all of one of the bullets on the first time; then he put you in a drug-induced coma for a couple days. Something about the bullet and your nerves- you know me and medicine. It's the one field -- well, besides the study of insects -- where the less I know about what's going on, the better." Anna grinned at him. "So how do you feel?"

Marcus laughed. "Well, considering the circumstances, I'm just fine and dandy. You?" He took a long look at her; the bruises on her face were an ugly greenish brown, her lip was almost split in half, and her right arm hung limply in its sling. She was beautiful.

"We're alive, aren't we?" She smiled. "Good enough for me."

"Yeah, we're alive."

The silence between them grew and Marcus glanced around the infirmary carefully. Good, no one within hearing range. Breathing deeply, he took her loose hand in his and told her to sit down. He knew she wouldn't -- couldn't -- say anything; not because she was shy or some stupid reason, but because he was her CO and, if things didn't work out, she would have more trouble and less chance of a career in - well, she probably wasn't going to be the one to be the subject up. Well then. . . now or never.

"Lieutenant -- Anna -- I know we agreed to just let things be. But back there, on that planet -- things changed." She opened her mouth to comment, but he held up his hand. "I've realized that there are more important things in life than being on Atlantis." He paused; she waited for him. "So I am asking you if - if you would be interested in seeing how we'd work out, I'm prepared to ask for a transfer to the SGC or a resignation if need be."

She pursed her lips and sat back, and Marcus wondered whether she could tell he was holding his breath. It was up to her, now. He could only hope she-

"I appreciate your offer, sir, and I would like a day to think it over if that's all right with you."

He let out a slow breath. All right, so she wasn't ecstatically jumping into his arms, but then again, the Schweinsteigger he'd fallen in love with wouldn't do that right now. No, she would smile at him, think it over, and either come up with some strange plan out of left field or agree with him. Well, unless she said no. But that - that was best left unthought of until later.

He smiled at her. "No problem, lieutenant. Just remember - don't keep a major waiting too long."

"When I see one, I'll be sure to-" she stopped at his puzzled expression, then giggled. "So you don't know? You mean they haven't told you yet? Sheppard didn't tell you the. . ."

Marcus shrugged. Maybe the good doctor had given her the wrong pain meds - because right now she looked like she was going to explode, though he couldn't tell whether she was laughing or going hysterical. He raised an eyebrow as she calmed herself.

"Well, apparently the upper brass were, wonder of wonders, impressed by Sheppard and our little mission. So much so that they made Sheppard a full colonel. No more lieutenant for him."

Marcus let out a laugh. "Good for him - can't wait to see him next time he goes up against Caldwell. But what does that have to do with --"

"They gave Rodney and Radek a pay raise, and they made Peters a major, too."

"Schweinsteigger, are you ever going to get to the-"

"In short, they gave everyone who went either a pay or rank promotion."

Marcus could have sworn the wheelchair he was lounging on fell out from under him. "'Tenant, are you saying what I think you're saying?"

"I told you exactly what I told you. . . Lieutenant Colonel Lorne." She grinned. "And you're going to have to find a new nickname for me, sir - although I don't know how you'll be able to shorten 'captain'."

He laughed and gave her a one-armed hug. Well, that would certainly help increase his chances of getting a transfer to the SGC. Now if he could just swing it so that-

"Sorry, sorry, my mistake!"

Marcus jerked his head up to see Rodney picking up the syringe packets he had just tipped over. Smiling, he looked up at Anna and backed his wheelchair up with his good hand.

"Now there is something I must do -- well, three things, actually, but those two can wait until later -- but one I have to before Beckett sends me back to bed." Wincing just a bit, he shoved his wheelchair forward, using the bed frame to propel himself. "So if you'll excuse me. . ."

He maneuvered himself over to Rodney and, tugging on the scientist's sleeve, muttered something in his ear.

Over in his office, Carson Beckett jerked awake and stared groggily at his computer. What was that-

"What do you mean, life-sign detectors? That's not a name, that's - that's a description." A pause. "You scientists: so unimaginative."

Carson listened to Rodney's squawks of protest and laughed. Oh yes, Lorne was back, and snarky as ever.

* * *

Seven, eight, nine. Stop.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Stop.

One, two, three, four-

"Pacing, hmm? Must be something important."

Anna sighed, ignored Katie, and continued pacing.

"See, I know you, and I know you only start pacing when you're trying to think something out."

Eight, nine, stop, one. . .

"Something important. Now what, I wonder, could be important enough to inspire pacing, but not important enough that you're discussing it with me or that lovely CO of yours."

Anna paused. "Don't you have anything better to do than torment me?"

Katie leaned back against one of the bridge supports, crossed her arms, and smiled smugly.

"Unless, of course, whatever you're trying to decide is of a secret, illegal or unethical nature, in which case you would simply come out here to the bridge and pace." She paused. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather talk it over? Two heads are better than one, after all."

Anna grumbled, sighed, and went to sit down next to Katie. She might be stubborn, but she could recognize common sense when she heard it.

"If, hypothetically, you had to choose between asking someone to give up a career or missing out on a relationship that would probably be worth it, what -- hypothetically, of course -- would you do?"

Katie didn't miss a beat. "Well, hypothetically, I imagine I would come out here, pace, and try to figure out some other way I could both let myself and this hypothetical person keep our hypothetical careers and yet pursue this hypothetical relationship."  
Anna tapped her foot impatiently. Clearly, this was not helping. Maybe if she- no, that wouldn't work. Damn it.

"Of course, there could be another way." Katie smiled beneficently down at her. "Say, for example, a hypothetical friend of yours had foreseen this possibility, and oh, I don't know, talked to the civilian leader of the expedition concerning personnel issues. . . Of course, you understand this would require a bit of a sacrifice on your part."

"I'm listening."

* * *

Five long hours later Anna walked into the infirmary. Colonel Lorne was lying on his bed, flipping through a modern art magazine and munching on a carrot. He looked up when she approached, smiling at her.

"I thought you said you'd come back tomorrow." He said, his teeth showing in a feral grin.

"I thought you said you'd get some rest." Anna drew up a chair and sat down.

"So. . ." He looked hesitant, nervous. Poor thing. "What's up, captain?"

"Well," she started, suddenly nervous herself. What if he didn't take it well? No, he would. He had to, right? "Well, I'm afraid there's something I have to tell you."

His face fell, and she almost felt bad for teasing him. Almost.

"You're going to have to find a new nickname for me."

He looked so cute when he was confused. It was just too tempting.

"You know that new bit of legislation General O'Neill kept lobbying for - allowing military personnel to resign when they were promoted to captain. . ." She paused.

"What did you do?"

She swallowed. Well, there was no going back now, even if she had wanted to. "Katie Brown - you know her?"

Lorne nodded.

"Well, she talked to Dr. Weir yesterday about bringing some new linguists to Atlantis. Unfortunately, things being as they are, the screening process alone would take two to three years before we could hire them, and then they would have to be trained." She took a deep breath. "With all the studying and the work - you could call it an internship, really - I've done in the field since I came to Atlantis, I could viably complete my doctorate in a year and a half. Dr. Weir said she would be more than happy to have someone like me working on Atlantis in that capacity."

Lorne clutched her hand and jerked his head up, staring at her intently. "Schweinsteigger, what did you do?"

"There's no need to call me by my last name, sir." She smiled. "I turned in my resignation to Colonel Sheppard three hours ago, and he signed off on it."

His grip went slack.

"You -- you resigned."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Why?"

"Because it was the only way this could work out, and you know that. The only other way would have been one of us transferring, and that would -- that just wouldn't work; we both love being on Atlantis too much." She grinned. "Besides, I'll still carry a P90 and go out with the teams - and I'll have better pay, too. Not to mention I won't have to take orders from you."

Marcus leant forward and took her hand in his. "You're sure? You won't regret this?"

She shook her head. "Miss the military, maybe. Regret it - not as long as I'm with you."

He moved his hand up, traced his finger along her face. "So a year and a half, huh?"

Anna nodded. "I leave with the Daedelus next Tuesday."

He smiled. "Well then," he said, smoothing her hair back and leaning forward so his face was inches from hers. "We'd best make the most of the time we have left, shouldn't we?"

She leaned forward and all the world around them faded.

It was -

- perfect.

**The End**


End file.
